I Am

<p>Each film shares the common theme of fear, and each film is based on real-life stories. They are – Onir first developed an idea for a short film while in . He later decided to make four shorts as he had too many ideas to fit into only one film. “Abhinmanyu” was originally written as a full-length film starring in her comeback, but after she pulled out Onir changed the main character to a male and turned it into a short film. The shorts were shot on location in (“Megha”), Mumbai (“Omar”), (“Abhimanyu”) and (“Afia”). The “Afia” segment was originally intended to explore corruption in , but Onir decided to focus on sperm donation instead. During location shooting in Srinagar for the “Megha” segment, the crew was attacked by rocks and received terror threats and had to shift to . Onir returned later under the guise of a documentary filmmaker to capture additional footage. Onir raised financing from not only the film’s stars, but also from members of the general public from around the world. Using and , Onir offered backers co-production credit in the film and a share in the profits. People who donated more than Rs. 100,000 became co-producers with a share in profits while those who contributed less than Rs. 100,000 received a mention in the credits. People have sent their contributions from Austria, the US, Nigeria and Australia. is the first mainstream Hindi film that is through social networking sites. Over 400 people from 45 cities across the world made this film happen by volunteering or contributing financially. Many of the participants in the film worked for free; Juhi Chawla, Manisha Koirala and Anurag Kashyap did not draw salaries and designed the film’s costumes for free. Fashion designers like Manish Arora and have made costumes available for free, while actors and his friends Juhi Chawla and Sanjay Suri, and director Anurag Kashyap have supported him with ideas. Juhi Chawla and Purab Kohli also financially contributed to the stories in the movie. had its world premiere at the I View Film Festival in . It screened at several other film festivals like the and the . was originally scheduled for theatrical release in India and Australia on 22 April 2011, but Onir changed it to 29 April. To promote the release of the film, Onir has started a script writing contest where the authors of the 10 best scripts will win a meeting with him to pitch their screenplays. will have a internationally beginning in New Zealand, and then moving to the US, Canada and Europe. The DVD of released on 31 May. received mainly positive reviews from critics. called it “an important and intelligent film” and named it “a must watch”. gave the film three and a half stars and named it “a motion picture of major significance” and “a landmark film”. praised for “fine performances and its inherent honesty”. Critics particularly praised Abhimanyu Singh and Nandita Das for their performances. On the other hand, Shilpa Jamkhandikar of called “painfully rehearsed” and “oversimplified”. In its opening weekend released on 67 screens in India and 7 in Australia, but failed to make an impact at the box office. It was fourth in overall weekend collections, ranking ahead of only . blamed the poor collections on the film’s depiction of social issues, saying it was “restricted only to discerning audience”. The soundtrack for was released on 8 April 2011 on . The songs are composed by , Rajiv Bhalla and Vivek Phillip with lyrics by Amitabh Verma and . In 2012 won the for and . The scripts for “Abhimanyu” and “Omar” were nominated for Triangle Media Group (TMG) Global Awards. also won the Audience Award at the 2010 , the Best Asian Film Award at the , and the I-VIEW Film Festival’s Engendered Award for Human Rights. has also been opening or a closing film for the following festivals</p>