"I will be directing Shab. It is set in Delhi. It is a love story between a gigolo and a prostitute," Onir said.
"I will start shooting the film after wrapping up Chauranga which we expect to complete by mid-February. I will start the process of sourcing people, talking to financiers and a part of it will be crowd-funded," he said. "We started crowd-sourcing for Chauranga by launching a contest for publicity design on social networking sites and got 60 designs from Spain, Bangladesh, the UK and small towns in India."
"Filmmaking is mostly centered on Mumbai, but to involve people from various parts of the country and other places through the social media to make it accessible is interesting," he added.
Soon Onir will launch a hunt for composers for the film on social networking sites.
"We are shooting in Jharkhand. Seventy per cent of the cast will be new people… next week we will start the process on the social network – we will put the character profile and if people feel they fit the character they can send their photos. We will then audition. We will be auditioning in Jamshedpur and Ranchi as I need that flavor," he said.
"Then there will be Shab. I will start around March. A lot of the cast in the film will be new," he said.
Onir is producing Chauranga, which is Bikas Ranjan Mishra’s directorial debut. It is based on a true life story that took place in Bihar. In 2008, a Dalit boy was thrown under a running train because he wrote a love letter to an upper caste girl.
"When I read the script, I knew I would never be able to direct it with the kind of vision that Bikas who is from Jharkhand has. So Sanjay Suri and I decided to produce the film," said Onir.
