During the recent Indian film festival in Florence, the “River to River”, we met the director Onir, who was in the city for the screening of his last film, “Shab”. Onir is one of the most kindest human being we have ever known. Always comes up smiling, and it has been a pleasure to have a chat with him.
Let’s talk about your last film, “Shab”, recently screened here in Italy at the River to River film festival. Do you consider it a film about loneliness or about the pursuit of love? We know that it’s a film you care deeply for.
Could you explain us why?
For me “pursuit of love” and loneliness are linked. The film is a film about desire dreams and destiny…. how very often to achieve our dreams we forget our core. Its about people in a big city…. each lonely and looking for love.
I care for the film a lot because it’s my first script and inspired by lives of people I know, a lot of me …. my quest for love in a society that criminalises my existence is a part of the film.
We have loved a lot the music and the songs of “Shab”, too. How did you chose the songs for this film?
For me music and songs are an integral part of life and story telling in India and the language of Indian cinema. I like to use songs to take the narrative forward. Mithoon and I had many discussions and sittings and each song took a while to get composed.
You write poems. Would you like that your poems will become the songs of a film of yours?
Haha… I am still shy about my poems. I call myself a bathroom poet and not sure if they deserve to be made into songs…. but who knows!
Now we would like to talk about your first film like director, “My brother Nikhil”. It’s a film based on a true story, that talk about about an important issue, and an uncomfortable topic.
It’s my first film and will remain my most precious film. Also with that I started my cinematic journey with my friend/actor/producer Sanjay Suri and we started making independent films together. I always dreamt of being a film maker. “My Brother Nikhil” was that dream becoming reality. Was an emotional journey as al of felt keenly that what we were doing had happened to someone…it was real and not a fairy tale.
Any projects for the future? What are you working on right now?
My next film is my first romance called “Kuchh Bheege Alfaaz” (Rain soaked words). Set in Kolkata the film will release in february 2018.
There are some actors or actresses whom you’d like to work with? And why? Yes I want to work with Gael García Bernal, Jude Law and Ranbir Kapoor. And actresses like Alia Bhatt and Juliette Binoche.
What do you think about international collaborations in the future? Would you be open to this possibility?
I feel the future of world cinema would be international collaboration, so though a niche world wide distribution they make commercial sense I want to get into that space soon.
Leggi l'intervista
