Onir in Ivy League

Onir doesn’t believe in doing the conventional, be it with respect to his cinema or his cinema’s marketing. After making unconventional movies like “My Brother Nikhil” and “Sorry Bhai”, for his next “I Am”, Onir’s going the whole hog and banking on his avant-garde soch.
So much so, that after generating public funding for the movie – the film has co-producers who’ve contributed as little as `1000 – he is now ready to take the movie overseas, but beyond the film festivals route.Onir has decided to screen “I Am” at a few important Ivy League universities in the US and is also holding discussions on the same at the academic institutions.
The institutions on his list include the New York University, Cornell University and the Wang Centre in New York. The director is also in talks with the University of Michigan for the screening, while he’s got the final nod from the Arsenal Museum of Fine Arts in Berlin. Onir, TOI has learnt, is leaving the country in mid-September when he heads to the US for these screenings. After that comes Canada on his itinerary.
Talking to TOI about the move, Onir says, “It’s true. We are planning to take the movie to various film festivals before releasing it in India early next year. But, in tandem with the film festivals, we are also screening “I Am” at some colleges and universities, and talking about the film there. But the discussion is not just on homosexuality, which is only one of the four short stories that are part of the movie. The discussions will be about much more.”
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