On Monday, the 4th of November, I went to see the screening of I Am in the Herg. This film dealt with the hardships of various people in India. Onir, the filmmakers, came to talk with the audience about the film afterwards. I felt the film was really well made but it was hard to tell that they were four separate stories. There was not an explicit explanation of when the story was changing or that they were not related. When the story changed from the first to the second I became severely confused as to where the first protagonist went. Then I spent the second story wondering how they tied in or waiting for them to show up. This was severely distracting to me and I think Onir could have clarified that more.
I found the question and answer session afterward very interesting because there were so many problems in the production and distribution of this film because of the topics it covered. A person who had previously seen the film said there were guys who were rooting for the people oppressing the gay rights in the film. That just disgusts me and Onir said how he often gets this kind of reaction. In India being gay is looked down upon and even illegal in places. One of the stories deals with homosexuality. Studios would not fund the film because of this. People would even leave the theater after this story. Onir had to change the order of the stories to have this one last so that people who left would still be leaving at the end. I found this fascinating. These are the type of things I hadn’t really thought about in the process of filmmaking. There is so much more to a film than the actual film: the funding, the audience, the subject. Something could easily go wrong in any of those aspects. And I though it was interesting how these things would not be an issue in the US. During the screening nobody walked out and there have been plenty of studio made films dealing with the subject of homosexuality. These films are widely supported here, especially because of the recent gay rights movement.
The film dealt with a lot of uncomfortable topics but, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was eye-opening to hear Onir’s perspective afterwards. I find it amazing that there are still people and places in the world that do not treat gays as equal. I hope Onir’s film and message continues to spread.