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, ''In India because of the archaic law created by the British which has been long discarded in UK, homosexuality is criminalized by law under article 377, whereas any man caught in a homosexual act can be imprisoned for life. This law is very often used by the police to harass and extort money from gay men. With my film, I wish to bring out some facts that I have collected in front of the audience.''
'Omar' tells the story of how because of fear of society and law, gay men very often get blackmailed and are scared to do anything about it.
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Adds Onir, ''This film is based on real life stories and incidences. It questions the law and society where the concern should be around addressing the deep and growing violence that could make one go up in arms against an expression of adult consensual love.''
''For long many important issues have been ignored by mainstream Indian cinema'', rues Onir, ''Our idea is to release each film for educational/awareness/festival purposes and eventually compile all five short films into one release for the general audiences. We believe that independent cinema exists to give a voice to those working against the tide and outside the system.''
'Onir' is being produced by Sanjay Suri and Onir with dialogues by Ashwini Malik, lyrics by Amitabh Varma and music by Pritam.