“What about the artist sentiment. … Where are we? Where do we stand as a society?” – Onir

Today I interviewed Onir.

Onir is an Indian filmmaker, producer, screenwriter and editor. He is best known for his film My Brother…Nikhil, based on the life of Dominic D’Souza, starring Sanjay Suri, Juhi Chawla and Purab Kohli. It was one of the first mainstream Hindi films to deal with AIDS and same-sex relationships. He won the Indian National Film awards for Best Film (Hindi) for the anthology “I AM” in 2011. I AM is considered as one of the first and largest crowd funded and crowd sourced film through social media in India. The film dealt with single motherhood, child sexual abuse, displacement and LGBTQI rights.

Born as Anirban Dhar in Samchi, Bhutan, Onir spent much of his childhood going

to the cinema. Earlier, Onir studied comparative literature from Jadavpur University in 1989, he received a scholarship to study film editing at SFB/TTC in Berlin. He later returned to India and worked as an editor, scriptwriter, art director, music album producer and song/music video director.

Together with Sanjay Suri, Onir started Anticlock Films, a production company that concentrates on promoting young directors and new ideas. His last release was “Kuchh Bheege Alfaaz” which is currently streaming on Netflix.

Onir has received the Diversity Award from Film Victoria Australia and La Trobe University at Indian Film Festival of Melbourne 2019.

In this episode we speak about how:

  • His experience as a gay filmmaker in India
  • Creating stories with heart that transcend boundaries
  • How audiences have changed and how that effects art

Then my character Carmella talks to him about his inspiration.

Instagram – @ianonir and @anticlock_films

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Podcast (rta): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 46:16 — 31.8MB)

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