onir

The award-winning filmmaker Onir, whose directorial debut, My Brother Nikhil (2005), broke new ground in LGBT representation on the Indian silver screen, opens up fully for the first time. From his childhood days in Bhutan to when he was a young man with no connections in the Hindi film industry who dreamt big and fought to carve a niche for himself, Onir takes the reader through his struggles and triumphs to offer an intimate glimpse of his fascinating journey to success. Now one of the few openly gay directors in Bollywood, Onir remains fearless about his identity and passionate about his role as a filmmaker in opening up the road to difficult conversations about identity and resilience.

I Am Onir and I Am Gay is a raw, eloquent and inspiring memoir about confronting and transcending frontiers. Written with his sister Irene Dhar Malik, this emotionally gritty and unabashedly honest personal story is a pathbreaking narrative of hope, love and the pursuit of dreams.

Onir is an acclaimed Indie filmmaker, based in Mumbai. His first film, My Brother Nikhil, won several Indian and international awards, including the Montreal Jury Award. His film I Am won the 2011 National Award as well as several international awards, including Best Film at the London Asian Film Festival. Onir has received the Diversity Award from Film Victoria Australia and La Trobe University at the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne 2019, and the Jury special mention for outstanding work on LGBT issues at the Indus Valley International Film Festival October 2020. He is one of the few people of the Indian film industry who are open about their personal identity. Onir also writes poetry.

Irene Dhar Malik is an award-winning film editor, screenwriter and writer of short stories. Irene’s short stories have been published in magazines and anthologies, such as like a volume of Afro-Asian short stories, Behind the Shadows, short stories by Indian women, Ripples, and in the Chicken Soup for the Soul series.