Crowdfunded LGBTQ Film From India Is Hoping For A Cannes Premiere
by The Daily Eye Team February 3 2017, 5:10 pm Estimated Reading Time: 0 mins, 43 secsSisak, which claims to be the country's "first silent LGBTQ film," is a wordless love story that unfolds between two strangers aboard local trains in Mumbai. The film's trailer was unveiled by Bollywood actor Sonam Kapoor, a Cannes regular herself, on social media. Sisak's writer-director Faraz Arif Ansari, who studied cinema in America, says he's exhausted all his savings to make the film that was turned down by many Indian studios for dealing with a "taboo subject." Indian law continues to criminalize gay sex. And local society, in turn, is infested with prejudices and biases against the queer community. Fortunately for Ansari, his crowdfunding call on Wishberry, the Indian equivalent of Kickstarter, met with an overwhelming response, garnering over $6,000 from 109 backers. The film was completed in nine month, at which point he could pay off his cast and crew.