In his award-winning film 68 Pages,gay director Sridhar Rangayan used fiction to gloss over harsh truths. For his current venture,Breaking Free,theres no escaping the facts that blight the lives of the LGBT community in India. On Sunday, Mumbai-based Rangayan screened a 14-minute synopsis of his film at Persistence Resistance,an ongoing festival of short films at India Internation Centre. The film when it is complete,will be around 80-minute long. Breaking Free weaves together three stories,of Gauri and Girish and my own. I started off as a confused introverted youth in a conservative small town and now make films on homosexuals and transsexuals, says Rangayan,who won the Silver Remi at the Houston World Fest last year for 68 Pages. Gauri and Girish,too,have fought hard battles and are now an activist and a healthcare worker respectively. Even as the film moves through the themes of social stigma,identity crisis and undying hope,the shadow of Article 377 looms large. The LGBT community is actively fighting the 1861 law that criminalizes homosexuality and a court verdict is expected this year. Only after the verdict,will I complete my film because only then will a new era have started in the lives of my two protagonists, says Rangayan.
