Thaindian News

By Joginder Tuteja

A little while back, film maker Onir had announced that he would be telling five short stories in a single movie. While he is currently casting for his film(s) and is looking at kick starting the principal shoot in the 1st week of June, he is managing to create quite some buzz with the themes that his stories are going to explore. Earlier in news for his story ‘Abhimanyu’ that touches upon the subject of child abuse, Onir’s second short film ‘Omar’ promises to reveal the nexus between police and male sex workers which has time and again resulted in blackmail and abuse of gay men on the pretext of using article 377.

Says Onir, “All that my character of ‘Omar’ wants is FREEOM to LOVE We hear stories about male prostitution and how cops support or go against it as per their will. I am looking at exposing this nexus because time and again one sees gay men in the line of fire. I want to bring that out in open.”

Revealing plans around the casting of his film, Onir says, “I want ‘audiences’ to watch the film, not just film festivals jury. I want the film to see a proper theatrical release. This is why there would be a mix of known and new actors in the film. Each of the stories would have a combo made of one established actor and a newcomer. This is a unique platform and I want to leverage the most out of it.”

While Ram Gopal Varma had picked on horror genre for DARNA ZAROORI HAI and DARNA MANA HAI, Sanjay Gupta had mixed genres ranging from drama to action in his ambitious DUS KAHANIYAAN. Each of these films were made of multiple short stories.

“Each of my short stories are going to be dramatic affairs and would be directed by me”, says Onir who has excelled in this genre ever since he made his directorial debut with MY BROTHER NIKHIL, “Also, all the five stories would be based on real life tales.”

Onir has already written the script for three stories and is in the process of finalising the remaining two. Titles finalised for the first three stories are ‘Abhimanyu’, ‘Omar’ and ‘Afia’.

“Each of my short stories would be content oriented rather than being gimmicky or trying to be overtly issue based. I can promise though that all these subjects are the kind that have never been touched in Hindi films”, he proudly declares.

One can’t help but ask on a parting note - ‘What prompted him to go for a short story format?’

Reveals Onir, “In my recent visit to Berlin, I started writing one of these short films. At that time my idea was to just make on such film. However, during writing I started getting more ideas that could be translated into short films. So I said to myself, ‘Why not bring them all together in 20 minutes format? This way we could have an entire film for an audience with as many as five stories to be told’” -Sampurn Media