Filmmaker Onir was one of the first voices for queer rights in Indian cinema with his 2005 film, My Brother Nikhil. Now, he is all set to bring another such story, My Melbourne, an Indo-Australian short film. It features the works of Onir, Kabir Khan, Imtiaz Ali, and Rima Das and will open at the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne (IFFM) on August 15.
In an exclusive interview with The Free Press Journal, the director opened up about My Melbourne, his personal touch in creating the masterpiece, being vocal about queer rights, the best film representing queer community, Bollywood actors’ hesitation on-screen, and more. Excerpts:
Nandini, your short film in the anthology My Melbourne centres on themes of sexuality. Can you share what inspired you to create such a story, and how it contributes to the conversation about diversity, especially in terms of sexuality and LGBTQ+ representation?
My Melbourne is not only about sexuality. It is a film about diversity, inclusion, belonging, and identity. Each of the short films takes a different route and the one that I am directing is about queer narratives. What inspires me is the question - why it was because I've been known for doing it. All my life I have been doing stories which also push for queer empowerment. I'm known as an LGBTQ activist.
So when the possibility of directing a short film, which is inspired by a real-life story of a queer individual, the writer of this short film, it’s inspired by his own experience of a migrant queer person in India, and how that person, and his interaction with the father who had initially disowned them and the father's attempt to reconnect to the child. So various stories were pitched to me, but this was the one which touched us the most. That's how we started working on developing the script.
What aspect of the personal touch from your life have you given to the film especially considering the sensitive nature of its theme?
My touch comes just like Imtiaz Ali's personal touch has come to the story that he's directing because every filmmaker has a certain style. So I bring in my style of storytelling. It's a film that's co-directed by William Duan from Australia. I would bring each of us directors our skills as storytellers to share with our stories.
What do you hope audiences will take away from Nandini when they watch it at the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne?
The audience should take away his acceptance. Humans sometimes take too long for a simple act of acceptance and that only denies them the possibility of receiving love. When you are accepting, then you can experience love much more in your life. It’s a film that asks people to accept diversity and to realise that it will only be realised through it.
You have been vocal about queer rights and the need for more representation of homosexual characters in Indian cinema. How do you think the industry has evolved in this regard, and what more needs to be done?
I feel over the last 20 years there's much more acceptance. 20 years ago, homosexuality or being queer was indeed criminalised by law and since that time we have moved ahead in 2018. There's much more discourse in public spaces, the pride marches, and discussion happening everywhere. So there's more audience awareness also because of social media. However, the film industry needs to produce more movies with queer narratives.
In recent times, was there any film or series which you did not like in terms of the representation of the LGTBQ community?
I feel that films like Kaathal are precious because, when you have a big star like Mammootty, playing a gay character. I feel stars in the South film industry could do this, and I wish stars from the Hindi film industry would have as much courage and would also support these kinds of films so that we start discussing them. I see South or Marathi cinema, not just doing queer films, but films that are important for social issues. There are also many short films from different parts of India, made by queer filmmakers. It's important to have more and more queer people tell their own stories.
What about the Bollywood films that have been made on considering topics?
I don't remember anything that's made, for example, apart from, a docu-web series like Rainbow Rishta, which was released on Amazon Prime Video, which was significant because it was a series that brought different queer lives to the audience. But apart from that, I don't remember anything significant happening in Bollywood, it's not doing as much as it should.
Do you think A-list Bollywood celebs are hesitant to play homosexual characters on screen?
Male actors in Bollywood are extremely insecure about how their personalities will be perceived, whereas they don't realise that if you look at Hollywood, the biggest of their stars have done queer films be it someone like Johnny Depp, Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, everybody. So I think that is where we lack something which we don't see happening.
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When you made My Brother Nikhil in 2005, do you think at that time society was ready for the concept of same-sex relationships?
It was easier to release films in theatres in the past. It's become difficult now. Sometimes you are told that a film is before its time, but I think that it's not that the film was before its time, it's that people were, or the industry was behind, and given a certain kind of support, I'm glad that My Brother Nikhil had the support of Yash Raj for distribution. I feel that the lack of support and openness within the industry hinders the telling of new narratives. I feel that there are so many walls within the street society and the industry that everyone is always trying to look at these as queer stories rather than just stories, which limits their impact.
