Writer and filmmaker Faraz Arif Ansari has woven various themes of womanhood, sexuality, Islam, nationality and identity into one narrative to make the audience think over them sensitively in his short film, Sheer Qorma. He tells Chahak Mittal how he’s trying to fight the mindset that a queer person isn’t normal or is different from the rest
What’s your definition of mainstream? Something that catches the common eye easily? For filmmaker Faraz Arif Ansari, it’s something that each and every person present can relate to. “When we talk about mainstream, our understanding of it is quite limited. We think there would be dance, music, drama, action or some comedy. But the term’s actual meaning is ‘universal.’ Everyone in the room should relate to what is being showcased. It doesn’t need to be loud or have a wedding. And it can still be called mainstream with elements as subtle as they could be. My film very much tries to re-define and re-explore what mainstream is and should be,” says the director of short film Sheer Qorma, starring Shabana Azmi, Divya Dutta and Swara Bhasker, which is set to hit the screens soon.
For Faraz, cinema has forgotten how to depict love. “Love is multi-layered. We’re just worried about plot-lines and how to sell it. If you look at Bollywood films, depicting the problems of the LGBTQ have just become a topic to cash in on a popular trend. They don’t genuinely exercise the practice of inclusion. The issue has only become commercial. But I just focus on how many lives my work is going to change,” says he.
The film, he adds, is, hence, also a lot about representation. He tells us, “I have to break this pattern in the industry where people are so non-inclusive even though they harp about inclusion all the time. Around 96 per cent of my crew and cast in Sheer Qorma were women, which is intentional because representation matters, no matter how big or small.”
It was after Sisak, the award-winning short film and the first Indian silent LGBTQ love story, that Faraz felt that something more needs to be done around the issue, while focussing on women. “I realised that nobody is talking about women in the queer diaspora. The conversations are still very related to men. There is so much of patriarchy and inherent misogyny even within the queer community. You’ll always come across stories of a man loving another man. But when it comes to a woman loving another woman, people get uncomfortable for some strange reason. They don’t want to talk about it,” he says, explaining why he decided to give this film an angle where women explore their love for each other in the backdrop of a Muslim household.
Produced by Marijke De Souza, the film, Sheer Qorma, Faraz says, is a gentle, heart-rending narrative of the longing for love and acceptance felt by queer children in their households. The story is told through delicate characters of courageous Muslim queer women. With multiple themes of ethnicity and culture at play within the narrative, the story sensitively confronts the harsh reality of disrupted family dynamics through a sensitive and universal tale.
Faraz says that he has woven a lot of themes into the narrative to make the audience think over it sensitively. He points out that there is a common perception that queer people don’t have a religion or a family. He adds, “But that’s not true. Why isn’t anybody making a film about us? We’re real people like everybody else. I identify as a gay, non-binary, Muslim person. For me, my religion has always been a part of me as much as my sexuality. And our generation is more about co-existing rather than discarding. I felt that while I am talking about LGBTQ women, I should also address the persisting Islamophobia, which too exists within the queer community in the Indian and Middle East belt. This is why the film has so many layers. It is layered with women, non-binary people, Islam, nationality, identity, and sexual preferences. Moreover, the portrayal of Muslim women has been very stereotypical in Hindi cinema.”
He tells us that his inspiration for this film has been his khala jaan (mother’s eldest sister), who he calls a “badass” or a tough woman at a time when it wasn’t even normal for women to be rebels. “She never got married and was the manager of one of India’s leading banks. She brought up her siblings when they lost their parents. She would tell me not to listen to anyone and do my own thing. I grew up with her courage. My mother, on the other hand, has been the complete opposite. She’s very worried about what people would think, which is probably why, even though I came out to her when I was 21, she still hasn’t fully accepted me. She still hopes that one day, I will get better and realise that it was just a phase.”
Growing up around inspiring women, who’ve done some pathbreaking things in their lives, you certainly gain a very different understanding of the world. He says, “I’ve always wanted to make films. It started with me as a child, who used to stage elaborate skits with characters like Barbie and He-Man for family gatherings during festivals. It’s not a very toxic-masculinity kind of understanding. Even my father is a very gentle creature. And the film, too, has no man surrounding the women because in Bollywood, even though the films that have been about women, there is always some man bringing in the masculinity some way or the other. This is way different from that. This one is all about love and why it’s the only thing we need to win hearts. Hate cannot heal the world.”
The filmmaker says that his fight is also with the terms “normal” and “different.” He says, “In school, I heard a lot of ‘he’s not like us’, or ‘he’s so different’ or ‘he’s not normal’. When we talk about ‘normalising’ it, I even hate the term normal. It makes it seem like we are talking about something that is otherwise not usual or present around us. So when my sexuality and being a Muslim came into play together as part of my identity, I just carried on with my life and did what I believed in.”
Fighting yet another mentality, the Taare Zameen Par writer and creative director points out that if two women are in love, the perception is that the love must be different from the rest. He says, “I’m trying to fight this mindset. I had interacted with many women and shared my draft with them. They’d ask, ‘How did you know about our lives?’ I’d answer, ‘By knowing about my life’.”
He adds that the biggest compliment, perhaps, came from actor Shabana Azmi when she called the film “gender-free.”
(The film’s trailer will be released on February 25.)
