If you are in Vancouver you can watch Sanjay’s latest as an Actor and Producer “I AM” being screened at the Vancouver International Film Festival.
I Am
Afia megha abhimanyu omar
[IAMXX] (Feature)
Cinema of Our Time
(India, 2010, 110 mins, HDCAM-SR)
Canadian Premiere
Directed By: Onir
PRODS: Onir, Sanjay Suri
SCR: Onir, Merle Kroeger, Urmi Juvekar
CAM: Arvind Kannabiran
EDS: Onir, Irene Dhar Malik
MUS: Mithoon, Vivek Philip, Rajeev Bhalla, Amit Trivedi
CAST: Rahul Bose, Nandita Das, Juhi Chawla, Manisha Koirala, Arjun Mathur, Sanjay Suri
The ramifications of enormous social change are made flesh through the experiences of four different individuals in director Onir’s omnibus of four films (each shot in a different Indian city). This is a version of India that we rarely see, dealing with contemporary issues such as sexuality, fertility, desire and betrayal. Each short film takes the name of its central character: Omar, Abhimanyu, Afia, and Meghna.
When Jai (played by arthouse regular Rahul Bose) meets a handsome young man in a cafe, their assignation (in a car) is interrupted by a knock on the window. Article 377 of the penal code that outlaws homosexual activity is used by the police to strip gay men not only of their civil rights, but also their money, property and self-respect… A young documentary filmmaker moves to the city and reinvents himself, only to discover that the past is not nearly so easy to leave behind. A lifetime of sexual abuse by his stepfather has taught Abhimanyu how to manipulate and exploit friends and lovers, but not how to understand basic human emotion… A young woman (the incandescent Nandita Das) decides to have a baby with the aid of a sperm bank. But this anonymous and impersonal method of motherhood comes with its own complexities… Returning to Kashmir for the first time since ethnic cleansing ripped the region apart, a young Hindu Pandit is reunited with her Muslim friend only to realize that the emotional wounds are as deep as the bullet holes that puncture the walls of her childhood home.
Credits: Viff