Onir deals with gay sex, child abuse in 'I Am'

Comprising five short stories, the movie is based on real life incidents and questions law and society, the director said.

"'I am' talks about identity and 'Omar' reveals the nexus between the police and male sex workers to blackmail and abuse gay men, who fear the society and law," the director said.

The film, which has a budget of 1.5 crore is being made by the funds collected through social networking websites and public.

Onir, who has previously directed movies like 'My Brother Nikhil' dealing with homosexuality and AIDS and 'Sorry Bhai', created a group on Facebook to get support for the movie.

Debutante Saheel Saigal plays the protagonist in Omar. The movie also stars Rahul Bose and Abhimanyu Singh in pivotal roles.

"Unfortunately, the society is up in arms against an expression of adult consensual love.

Love should not threaten anybody. It is the violence and terrorism which is threatening our culture and heritage and not consensual relationship between two adults," the filmmaker said.

"In India, archaic laws made homosexuality a crime where any man caught in an homosexual act can be imprisoned for life," he said.

The director said he will start shooting for 'Omar' from August 17 adding he has already shot in Bangalore for one of the stories on child abuse story called' Abhimanyu'.

The other stories in the film are: 'Afia'  which talks about accountability of NGOs and will be shot in Delhi; 'Megha' is about loss of home of Kashmiri pandits and dwells on two Kashmiri women- a Hindu and a Muslim, to be shot in Srinagar; 'Rudra' is about the Maoist crisis and will be based in Kolkata, he said .

The duration of each story is about 20-25 minutes and collectively the film span goes to one hour and forty minutes, Onir added.