Onir's next ventures into issues of gay sex, child abuse

Filmmaker Onir who is currently filming his new movie I am, comprising five short stories, is working on Omar, one of the tales dealing with Article 377 on the contentious issue of legalising gay sex.
       
"'I am' talks about identity and 'Omar' reveals the nexus between the police and male sex workers to blackmail and abuse gay men, who fear the society and law," the director told PTI. The film,  based on real life stories and incidents, questions law and society where the concern should be addressing deep and growing violence.

Debutante Saheel Saigal plays the protagonist in Omar. The movie also stars Rahul Bose and Abhimanyu Singh in pivotal roles."Unfortunately, the society is up in arms against an expression of adult consensual love. Love should not threaten anybody," he opined.

"It is the violence and terrorism which is threatening our culture and heritage and not consensual relationship between two adults," the filmmaker said.

"In India, archaic laws made homosexuality a crime where any man caught in an homosexual act can be imprisoned for life," he said adding "it is very often used by the police to harass and extort money from gay men." 

The director said he will start shooting for 'Omar' from August 17 adding he has already shot in Bangalore for one of the stories on child abuse story called' Abhimanyu'.

The other stories in the film are: 'Afia'  which talks about accountability of NGOs and will be shot in Delhi; 'Megha' is about loss of home of Kashmiri pandits and dwells on two Kashmiri women- a Hindu and a Muslim, to be shot in Srinagar; 'Rudra' is about the Maoist crisis and will be based in Kolkata, he said .

The duration of each story is about 20-25 minutes and collectively the film span goes to one hour and forty minutes, Onir added.