 |
| Akash Menon and Mir Tawseef as Karun and Faheem |
When I met Onir the week before last, the celebrated Indian filmmaker was looking forward to his second visit to London’s BFI Flare, having screened Pine Cone there last year. This year’s offering, Kashmiri love story We Are Faheem & Karun is one of the best films at the festival so I was delighted to have the opportunity to discuss it, but he’s modest about his work.
“I was overwhelmed,” he says of his 2024 experience. “Within the first two days, the tickets were sold out, and they requested for a third show. And they asked me ‘Why do you think your film is so popular?’ I said that all the South Asians must be coming. And then, before the show started, when I was taken in to the cinema, I realised that 80% of the audience was not South Asians. That was a surprise.
 |
| We Are Faheem & Karun |
“At the same time, I was very anxious that, in terms of the language of cinema, my film was very Indian cinema. It's not ‘world cinema’, so I was anxious about how the audience would react. But I think the audience was very, very kind. And so when I got accepted this year, I was very, very excited to come back because I feel the ambience and the audience interaction and also generally the festival. Everyone at the festival is so warm and welcoming. And this time I'm coming with one of my actors, so it's even more exciting.
“The film is entirely shot in Kashmir. Every Kashmiri character is enacted by Kashmiri actors, and I also use the language as much as possible in the film. The reason for doing it is I feel, in a way, it's probably the first film which is set in Kashmir which deals with queerness. It's a very difficult thing because generally I've realised that everyone only wants to talk about conflict and paint it in black and white, you know? But when you really look at this, you realise there's so much gray.
“Every side has its argument, and you realise that for years and years we continue nurturing conflict instead of looking at possibilities of where we can find oneness. We can keep othering each other. And I feel that being queer in a space like India, you are anyway othered, so it's easier, when you're queer, to overcome those barriers and find the oneness in each of us. And I thought also, when a film is set in a space like Kashmir, it's always like, if you want to talk about women's rights or queer rights, it becomes ‘Oh, but that is not important.’ But for centuries of us being invisible, why is it not important?
“Is it just because when it comes to the queer community, we are a minority, so then it becomes unimportant? But everywhere else we are constantly talking about minorities and how important it is. I feel that it's so important to counter this narrative of being constantly made invisible. You know, the film does not deny conflict. It does not deny that there are various very, very complex things that don't have solutions, but at the same time it addresses queer identity.”
Its two leading characters are in very different situations in relation to their queerness, I note. Karun already has some connections tp the queer community, and seems quite comfortable with himself, but Fahim leads a much more cautious life.
 |
| We Are Faheem & Karun |
“I’ve been in Kashmiri for 18 years, so I’m not just going there and making the film,” he says. “I know the language, and I have realised over the years that because Kashmir is a majority Muslim community, there is fear to speak about your sexual identity if you're queer, but everyone knows it's there. I, as an out and proud queer person, I feel that I'm very easily accepted, but perhaps it’s because I'm perceived as the other, that I don't belong. When it comes to within the community, there is absolute resistance to acceptance.
“In a lot of Muslim countries where it’s still criminalised by law, there is all kinds of persecution. It was interesting for me, as an out and proud gay person, going to this space over the years, realising that a lot of queer people from the community there would reach out to me and feel much more comfortable sharing their stories, their lives, their emotions with me rather than with another queer person from the community itself, because they would feel threatened by that.
“This story is inspired by a real story, and I heard stories from a lot of people I know. The situation is very different in Kashmir, whereas in mainland India, especially after 2018, when it's been decriminalised, there is much more of presence. We are still not equal but there is much more presence of the community. We have Pride marches happening, we have conversations happening, we have much more visibility.”
And yet in the film, I observe, there is a bit of sympathy that Fahim finds with people from within his own community. It rather reminded me of when I was growing up and homophobia was commonplace in the UK, but families often were more supportive secretly than they would be openly.
He nods. “It would be very easy to do the stereotype of the Muslim family. And in India, if you're in the forces, if you're in the army, you're not accepted as queer. Okay? Now, if you see Karun's colleagues, they all accept him. They scold him, they're concerned, but they don't humiliate him because of his identity. They accept him. I wanted to show that we have this. We constantly see stories where you are not accepted, where you're humiliated. And here you realise one, both the characters, they're not struggling within themselves about their identity, they accept their queerness. When the mother, the brother, they find out, they're anxious, they're worried, but they don't attack him.
“They are worried about his safety, about his being there. So the brother wants him to leave. And it is not just because of fear, it's also because of concern. Maybe it’s when you start looking at each other as human beings. I feel that be it my students, be it the people I work with, I have found that acceptance. There are instances when you encounter hate, but that you do anyway, you know? I thought why not bring in that there are people who can overcome the hate?”
We talk about the first scene in the film, when Faheem and Karun first meet and a lot depends on eye contact.
 |
| We Are Faheem & Karun |
“There is also the apple,” he notes, referring to the small gift given by Faheem, a locasl man travelling home, to Karun, a border guard. “It's kind of a symbol. I wanted that if you see the two of them – like you correctly mentioned, that Karun is someone who has had certain exposure to things, whereas Faheem is always careful – but at the checkpoint, I wanted that Fahim is the one who actually takes the step. At that point, Karun is standing there and he has his colleagues around, so he's extremely conscious of this. At the same time, Faheem is not within a space where everyone he knows is there. So he is much more at ease when he looks at this guy.
“Most of my life, I've spent in a country where I was criminalised by law. And I remember that very often, before Grindr and all this, how do you get to know each other? I think it's because of the way you look at each other. There's a difference. And I wanted to bring that in because for me, Karun and Faheem were in a space where, you know, you can't go to a gay bar. They still are in a space where maybe I was 20 years ago, before chat rooms and all that came in. I thought about how sometimes you would be in a café or walking down the street and then you’d just feel that energy in the look and want to explore that. I think that is what they do with each other. And for me, it was very important to establish this first thing.”
We spend time with Faheem and his family but have less opportunity to get to know Karun through the narrative, so that needs to be approached differently.
“I feel that with Karun, the little that we get to know beyond his everyday life is in his conversations with his mother. Also, right in the beginning, when you see him chatting, you realise how lonely this guy is. He ends up chatting with someone, unfortunately, just across the border. It's just a mountain, and yet they can't be together. I feel that as a person, you see Karun's character through his encounters with different people who come to the checkpoint, like when the tourists come, how he describes India and Pakistan’s relationship. You realise that as a person, he's someone who is different – even in his approach to the checkpoint, when they have this full operation of checking and you can see that he just is so uncomfortable with it.
“We don't get to see so much about his family apart from the fact that his mother is talking about him getting married to a girl. But I think it is more that his space is that checkpoint. So everything about him that we see revolves around that space and how he interacts with different people who pass through that space.
“Karun is doing a job in the best way he can. It's just that he's not passionate about this job, like lots of people for whom it's just an employment. He does it to the best of his ability. His conflict is more that knowing that if he comes out with his identity, he will not be accepted. So he has to hide his identity. Originally he was supposed to be an army man, and then the Ministry of Defense banned the film, so I changed the costume and make it into security. The story remains the same and I feel that the message happens. For me, what was interesting is it was discussed in the parliament and that itself becomes a step towards conversation.
“Karun does his job, but when for the first time in this space he has to face conflict, when there is the frisking starting, suddenly there is that wall of power and Karun is in the space of power and he's not comfortable with that power at all.”
 |
| We Are Faheem & Karun |
We discuss the music in the film.
“I feel that songs are an extremely integral part of India cinema,” he says. “For me, this film, more than anything, has to be seen by the audience in India. We have songs everywhere in all our celebrations and as gay people, we have always seen songs where it's between a girl and a guy and had to appropriate that song for ourselves. I thought it's time that we have our own love songs. This song is about longing, and I wanted to use it in the way it's used in Indian cinema to express longing, to express desire. This is also a tool for me to connect to my audience in India, which is not easy – even now it's not easy to tell queer stories out here. The music helps connect to a wider audience, and that is very, very important for a film like this.
“I think cinema is extremely important and we can really make a difference, but I think the state is threatened by cinema and that's why there is so much censorship. Also suddenly you see in India a lot of films which are indirectly financed by people who are with the state. So there is a certain kind of narrative that's being pushed, you know? At times like this it's even more important because you suddenly see also a lot of ‘artists’ who you never thought would, for their own benefits, have started telling certain very dangerous narratives about different minority communities, how they're portrayed, how they are othered, how they're vilified.
“Seeing what is happening in the US overnight, you know, we have to be constantly vigilant about our rights, about our visibility, because you realise suddenly that whatever we've achieved over the years can be taken away.”
