India's first silent LGBTQIA love story 'Sisak', to premiere in Mumbai

India’s first silent LGBTQIA love story Sisak, a short film by Faraz Mariam Arif Ansari, will premiere in Mumbai on Sunday noon. Sisak which has floored audiences globally, winning a whopping 34 prestigious international awards since April this year.

Ansari, ecstatic at the recognition of his film going on to become India's most awarded short fiction film across genres said he was thrilled the film will premier in his own city. "Sisak has become the first ever Indian short film, LGBTQIA or otherwise to have won 34 international awards, many at non-LGTBQIA festivals too! As if this record wasn't enough in itself, what better way to end the year than celebrating this love with everyone with this Mumbai premiere,” he said and added, “Let's not forget that Sisak is, after all, a gentle reminder to everyone that love is, after all, love. Gender or any other distinctions don’t change its essence, it’s soul. That’s why I see this Mumbai screening as a grand celebration of love, unity and diversity.”

Awards galore

Since it won the best short feature at Wicked Queer – The Boston LGBT Film Festival in April this year, Sisak has kept the awards rolling in. Among the many feathers in its cap include: best international short and best international screenplay at Festival Internacional de Diversidade Sexual e de Gênero de Goiás; best overall short at FilmOut San Diego; best short at The Accolade Competition and Jury's Award (Special Mention) at Connecticut LGBT Film Festival Out Film CT; audience award, Queer Bits International Film Festival, Chicago; best short, audience award, Excuse My French Indie Film Festival; best short audience and jury's choice awards, The Carolina Theatre of Durham; best international short, Mosaic International South Asian Film Festival; best film, Fargo Moorhead LGBT Film Festival; best international short, Salenta International Film Festival; best picture, Trans Stellar Film Festival; best gay film, Trans Stellar Film Festival; best international film, Florence Queer Festival; best international short, Thessaloniki International LGBTQ Film Festival; best film, best director, best production, best script, best sound design and best approach to diversity at the Festival Venezolano de Cine de la Diversidad; best short film, audience choice, Full Bloom Film Festival; best actor, Jitin Gulati, Fisheye Film Festival; best of the festival, Arlington International Film Festival; best narrative short, North Dakota Human Rights Film & Arts Festival; best short from both the audience and jury's choice, Queer-Streifen, Regensburg; best international short, OutWest Film Festival, Reno Tahoe; best international short, Queer Film Festival, Playa del Carmen, Mexico and best short award for excellence, Short Film Competition, USA.

The trigger

A University of Pennsylvania film school student, Ansari, who was assistant director on Gippi (2013) with Dharma Productions has dabbled both in cinema and TV. He was in Nainital in December 2013 doing a musical The Lion King, where he took breaks at a cafe while working on his own socio-political satire Ravivar (where the protagonist is a gay). “My eyes were drawn to the TV. The Supreme Court had in one swoop had reversed the Delhi High Court's July 2009 order which de-criminalised consensual homosexual acts in private by declaring as unconstitutional a part of Section 377 of IPC. I just sat there quiet and wept for over three hours as activists and known faces in the LGBTQIA movement lamented this ruling on the screen.”

He remembers strangely being unable to communicate his extreme sadness to anyone. “I couldn't speak. I didn't want to meet anyone or say anything. I felt so devastated that I couldn't even type a social media post.” That's how he began Sisak, “expressing the pain and rejection within.” He recounts how all through film school, it was hammered into him to speak with visuals. “A professor of mine would say, 'If you want to write dialogue, then write a radio play.' No dialogues came to my mind at all. It was not like I set out to make India's first silent LGBTQI film. I just didn't feel the need for my characters to talk. I wanted to make a film where two people don't even talk to each other, forget touching each other and yet fall in love,” and adds, “And when you watch them fall in love, you fall in love with them because your heart goes out to their helplessness, to their inability to love, because of a stupid law!”

Mom's title

Faraz says he generally titles his work before even writing the first line. “It's very important for me to do that. But this time it was untitled. I have my Urdu expert mom to thank for this title. When I read it to her she said, “Yeh ek sisak hai jo dil ke rone ki awaaz hoti hai. I loved the word. It really was that cry which chokes you from within and are not free to express it.”

When he came back to Mumbai he got busy with other assignments like writing a film for Tanuja Chandra and a TV show for Star Plus and the yet untitled Sisak was on the back burner till 2015 when he guiltily went back to pursuing it in earnest. “Since nobody was willing to back me. I decided to pool all my savings and go for it on my own. Saurabh Goswami my DOP was the first to come on board and my sound designer Pritam Das was next. But I don't know what I'd do without production designer Aparna Sud (of Neerja fame) who gave me funds to rent a Cannon 5D Mac iii camera and lens.”

Troubleshooting

The trio had other concerns. “How the f*** are you going to make it? This is pure poetry. And here, getting permission to shoot on the train itself will be so difficult,” he laughs recounting what Das had told him.

Going the official route was a no-no, as the railways charge a whopping Rs 2.5 lakh/six hours for allowing a shoot. “Here we were managing on food my mom provided while working. Where were we going to get more money than we would spend to make two Sisaks just to pay the railways? I remember telling Das, 'I'll be damned if I pay to shoot a gay film on local trains. The community's been cruising and owning the space for decades now.' We just decided to shoot-and-scoot avoiding cops.”

Casting coup...

He remembers how even TV actors who have barely done an episode or two refused to act in his film. “They were worried about being typecast or whisper campaigns about their sexual orientation,” he laughs, “Even the few who auditioned were so caught in this thought that they'd try to be affectedly hypermasculine even when all I asked them do was read a book. It would require superhuman effort to not burst out laughing hysterically to their face.”

This went on till Ansari's social media rant about not finding actors caught model/actor Jitin Gulati's eye. The Raymond's 'complete man,' who has done over 75 big ad campaigns (Lifestyle, Smirnoff, Clear Anti Dandruff Shampoo, Lux Soap, World Gold Council, LUX Shampoo, Haywards, etc) for top brands met Ansari at an event and agreed to come aboard with the one line narration.

As for his other actor Dhruv Singhal, he was still pursuing his final year at Symbiosis Centre for Media and Communication, Ansari had seen one of his college project films in which he had acted and liked it. “Dhruv was so raw and unaware of his own talent as an actor that I felt he was right. Many actors who do a lot of workshops and training become aware of their own potential strengths, play on these and start acting in a very processed manner. With Dhruv, it was not like that. Each of his takes would be so different and I love imperfection.”

He does admit to running a tight ship on his shoot. “I want my actors to surrender to me. In my script, everything from when the actor breathes, blinks or sighs is written. I'm a bit anal when it comes to my writing and direction. Thankfully both my actors were splendid. 90 percent of the times we got it right in the first take itself. So though we had initially planned to shoot for seven days we were done in three.”

Shoot & scoot...

The crew would begin their journey from Andheri around 9 pm and go to Churchgate against the traffic in April 2016. And only after travelling back and forth for an hour actually, begin shooting. “I wanted the actors to get comfortable with the torque and swaying of the train. After an hour when their bodies were used to the rhythm of the rain we would begin rolling. It was a very workshop-y way of shooting,” he describes and adds, “Every frame was properly story-boarded. We had no luxury of going on to the train and planning the shoot. We had little time. We had to shoot and scoot, literally since security is so tight post 26/11 and we didn't want the cops' attention.”

And did he shoot in the second last compartment which gay men prefer to board? “No, we did not shoot on 'that' compartment because the cruising that happens in my film happens in an unsaid way. There is Dhruv's character who is on the train, lonely, unloved and there is the other man who walks into the compartment by default not knowing what he's walking into,” explains Ansari. “My film is not about two gay people meeting but about two individuals who meet and stumble upon love. And that lasts till the train ride. Outside they have their own world. One of them is married and has to go back to his world and this suffering young man has to go back to his misery. The film's focus remains the fleeting solace they find in each other.”

Reaching out to crowds

Once the shoot was done, a cash crunch hit the crew as a lot of money was needed for editing (hiring an editor, renting a studio suite for the editing the film and its promo), sound design (hourly studio rentals), basic colour correction and visual enhancement, background music (again hourly studio rentals, live musicians, sound engineers) and to send Sisak to national and international mainstream film festivals and not just LGBTQI ones.

Finally, they decided to try crowdfunding. “We had set a target of Rs 3 lakh in 30 days but got that much in three. Over the remaining days, we generated another Rs 1.15 lakh which I then distributed among all crew members equally. I thought they deserved it since they had all come forward to be part of Sisak without any money.”

His own Sisak moment

When prodded about his own tryst with unexpressed/unrequited love Faraz opens up about his experience from two years ago while taking a flight to Delhi from Mumbai. “There was a guy right behind me. As we checked in, I could feel an energy exchange right there,” he recounts. “He sat in the row ahead but was across the aisle and we simply kept looking at each other at every opportunity and even exchanged smiles. But neither had the courage to say anything. After landing he stood near me at the luggage belt and I kept waiting for him to initiate a conversation. Later we walked out together. His car arrived and my maasi came to pick me up. From our cars, we kept staring at each other.”

And then? “Well. Finally, when our cars were going their way, he winked at me. Though nothing happened or could happen, my heart was in my mouth.”

What next?

Ansari has already begun shooting his next Dulha Wanted. He's tight-lipped about the film for which he has roped in the the two-times national awardee veteran Surekha Sikri. “I will talk about this film when I am ready. For now, it is all about Sisak.”

We can only wish him all the best.