Q & A with Faraz Ansari on His Upcoming Queer Short Featuring Shabana Azmi

FA: Inspiration never comes from a singular source. Like all the greatest feelings we know of, it develops with time. There are many individuals, instances, dreams and inspirations behind Sheer Qorma. It is a culmination of many beliefs and needs that need to be addressed and spoken of freely, without guilt, in the mainstream realm. Sheer Qorma tells a story of minority within minority, of women of colour, women empowerment, Islam as a philosophy and Urdu as a dying language.

FA:I always cast instinctively. Shabana Azmi ji, Divya Dutta & Swara Bhasker are phenomenal actors—each of them trailblazers. Their works have always celebrated the harmony of mainstream cinema and the most important and relevant subjects and characters that need attention. Sheer Qorma is about that— bringing the mainstream and relevant together and embracing it. The casting needs to serve the story and so I followed my heart and reached out to them. Thankfully, it all aligned and we have such a powerful cast that will be seen on screen for the first time ever in Indian cinema. I’m immensely grateful to all three of them.

Sheer Qorma is a universal film talking about two of the most universal emotions that each one of us, whether we identify as heterosexuals, homosexuals, asexuals, etc. have been through at various point in our lives — acceptance and love. It is not just an Indian subject. It has a larger universal relevance to it which I think should be the work of all art—deeply rooted in the nation, absorbing its nuances but also very universal at the same time, to bind us all together and make it easier for the message to reach where it is intended to. Sheer Qorma is a film I have made for my mother and every parent in this world. This is all of our stories that I have attempted to tell through a singular experience.

FA:I cannot speak for “Bollywood” and what it will do or what it won’t. I can speak for myself. I happen to be a part of the Indian film industry and if a part can represent a whole then it is only right to mention that for the last one year I’ve been trying to make my first feature film, titled Sabr, about an Indian transgender woman. To find the right transgender candidate to essay the lead role, I went on a casting spree that lasted for more than a year—I even held free acting workshops for the Indian transgender & queer community in Delhi & Mumbai. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the right actor from the trans community to essay the role. It made me realise how we have failed as a society that we don’t have trans actors. Most of the Indian trans community has been so engulfed in meeting their daily needs and requirements that they didn’t have the time to pursue acting as a profession. I have made a promise to them to keep hosting these free acting workshops more often so that they have the best professionals from the Indian film & media industry to train them and guide them to find their way onto the big screen. It’s a long way but I am glad we’ve begun our journey.

FA: We have been getting a great deal of attention from national and international media, which we are extremely thankful for. It’s rare to see so much excitement for a queer short feature film. We do plan to do a poster reveal later this year followed by a trailer release, in another event after that. Films that are mainstreaming the queer narrative need to be wholly celebrated as much as possible and so we are going to go full throttle with everything we can do to celebrate Sheer Qorma.