Fashioning Identity Through Cinema With Faraz Arif Ansari

Film-maker Faraz Arif Ansari represents a novel wave of cinema, one that connects with audiences beyond the traditional barriers of movie theatre distribution and platforms, untouched by the will of commerce. Ansari’s short film, Sisak (2017), reached audiences via YouTube for free, and the follow-up, Sheer Qorma (2021), was presented through numerous screenings at global film festivals. Thus, the films were not bound by traditional production house methods and restrictions — for, as Ansari confided to the audience at a Sheer Qorma screening, “A potential producer demanded I put in a sex scene if they were to make this film.”

Preferring to write, direct and also ideate the costumes for the characters, no topic is left untouched before embarking on a new project, especially when it comes to fashion. The detail-oriented approach to costuming reflects in Ansari’s personal style which I had the unplanned pleasure of experiencing first-hand at a private screening of Sheer Qorma. Storming into the room in a three-layered, flared set made of densely-gathered cream fabric, juttis, jewellery and a deep red fez (also known as the Rumi cap, a conical felt hat popularised by Ottoman fashion, seen on whirling sufi dervishes), they set the impression of a figure more at home in a Mughal miniature. A theme that Faraz confirms in our conversation, “In my ideal world, I would dress in nothing but jamas and angrakhas.”

Busting regressive narratives and offering empathy for identities across the spectrum has been at the core of Ansari’s work right from the start. Before directing their own films, they worked with noted screenwriter Amole Gupte on Taare Zameen Par (2007) and Stanley Ka Dabba (2011), raising awareness of child abuse, labour and dyslexia. It is this school of thought that magnifies diversity and celebrates authenticity that so distinctly arrives in every project. I first encountered Ansari’s work when posters of Sheer Qorma flooded social media five years ago. It was a captivating concept since it explored the under-discussed topics of gender and sexuality but doubly so because it was through the lens of a Muslim family. You could make the case that Faraz’s stories are not just meant to highlight queerness, but to open conversations amongst people who might not generally interact with these topics. “Cinema has to be celebrated outside the milieu it was made from...” as they tell me.

Their first long-form production, Bun Tikki — which sees the return of actors like Zeenat Aman and Abhay Deol — will be showcased at the 36th Palm Springs International Film Festival 2025. On the cusp of its release, they sit down for an exclusive with Verve to discuss their upbringing, artistry and alternate paths for Hindi cinema.

Excerpts from the conversation…

What inspired your passion for making films?

My desire to be a film-maker comes from the place of storytelling; probably from my mother. I’ve been telling and writing stories, I think, for as long as I can remember. Initially, back in the day, there was no, ‘Oh, this is what I want to do when I grow up.’ It just came to me naturally.

I grew up in a house with three women — my mother and her two sisters —  who loved telling stories. For them, even narrating the most inane activity used to be a storytelling session. It started with something like, ‘Oh I went to the market’ and then it was like, ‘What happened next?’ It was all in the dialogue, the delivery of a line, versus mere actual information. It would have been something so stupid, and you know, the story may not even have added up, but at that time it became an incident since it was so intriguingly told.

Did the fact that your childhood was filled with the influence of women also play into your idea of self?

I do honestly think that my sense of self was inherently there — it has always been there. But what my family did was to nurture it. They never said, ‘Kya kar rahe ho? Kyu kar rahe ho?’ [What are you doing? Why are you doing it?]. They said okay, if that’s what you are comfortable with, then you do it. So, I think that nurturing was very essential. Of course, the world outside was something else altogether. But I had a safe space which I feel is so integral and important to so many of us. And I feel that that eventually changed how I view things, how I imagine things. And I feel that my world-building comes from there. It comes from a world that my family built for me.

What are some of the visual elements that you remember from your childhood that have informed your world-building?

So, my khala jaan [mother’s younger sister] loved two things very much — make-up and perfumes. I remember she had this Chanel No. 5 bottle…. She loved dressing up and she loved dressing me up. After she did her make-up — obviously as a child she never put any on me —  she would take some of the blush and brush it on my face. So I used to feel very involved. And then I would see her spray perfume in the air and walk through it. It’s a vision that’s etched in my head. I do the same now.

As I grew up, of course, I added my own twist to it. I sort of take a twirl in the perfume, after spraying it in the air. My very close friends who’ve seen me do this just can’t get over it. But a lot of people don’t get to see these things because that is a world that I keep very safe and guarded for, as you know, it’s who I am at my core. I think you will see that part of me in bits and pieces in the films that I’ve made, and also the films that I will be making in the future.

How much did your upbringing impact your personal style?

Fashion has never been an armour with which to protect myself. Rather, it’s an extension of my being. I don’t use fashion to hide. I use fashion to embrace more of myself. Embracing who you are is an everyday journey, every day is a coming-out day for a queer person. For instance, I had to meet so many writers, one day. Every time a person walked in, I was like, ‘Oh, so they’ll be thinking about my sexuality now.’ So by default, you are coming out with so many people every day. I feel that also is a part of your evolution. Every little thing that happens to you, every little decision that you take, every time that you walk down the street, you are trying to define and redefine who you really are.

You write, direct and also have a hand in the costume designs for your films. How are you able to stay on top of these multidimensional roles?

I am a very controlling writer. Every detail is etched into the screenplay — not just the costumes, but make-up, production design, how the character’s hair is going to fly, the way the light is going to fall….

I believe that when there is a vision involved — and you get people on board to understand and execute what you are seeing — for them to recreate your vision, you have to be as precise about it as possible. Everything has to be written down. So, whether it was Sisak, Sheer Qorma or Bun Tikki, I was very clear about how I saw everything. When I wanted to make Bun Tikki, the first thing that I had in my mind was that it’s a very sun-kissed film. That descriptor then became a go-to for everyone in every department. For something to be sun-kissed, it needs to come from a place of joy. And that is reflected even in the atmosphere that one creates.

Interestingly, for the costumes for Sitara Jaan, Zeenat Aman’s character in Bun Tikki, when I made the mood board, I clearly saw in my head that she wore these really interesting saris. And of course, when Manish (Malhotra) decided to produce it, he came on board as the costume designer. He brought in the whole idea of sweaters and saris and added his own twist of polka-dotted saris which he’s shared on Instagram. When you already have the basic dimensions, and other people come on board, they keep adding more dimensions, which adds to the world-building that I have in mind.

Do you create characters with costumes in mind or do the costumes develop later?

For me, the character always ‘arrives’ wearing specific clothes. That’s the way I imagined Zeenat’s character in Bun Tikki, Divya’s [Dutta] and Shabana’s [Azmi] in Sheer Qorma. The way Shabana is presented in Bun Tikki is completely different. You imagine the characters with a certain energy, and that energy dictates what they wear and how they speak, what sort of make-up they have on and the colours around them. It’s all interlinked.

In Sisak, your silent film, almost everything is conveyed by the characters’ expressions. Did you have a body language director or did you pre-visualise the moves in complete detail?

As a director, one has to be equipped to handle everything from body language to dialogue delivery to intimacy…to everything. You need to know it. Otherwise, what is the point of calling yourself a director? You need to understand the grammar of storytelling, and I feel that the body language comes from the ethos of your characters and the emotions in the story.

The way I wrote Sisak, if I read it to you, you’ll see that everything has been written down to the minutest detail — ‘He takes gulps, and then he lowers his eyes, and then he slowly lifts his hand, and he holds his foot.’ So literally everything, every beat, is written.

There are two characters in Sisak. One is a suited office-going man with a very clear machismo in his attire. The other, in a short kurta and chappals, is a more free-flowing archetype. What inspired their dynamic and their way of dressing?

The inspiration for Sisak came from a personal experience that I had the first time that I went to New York when I was 16 and did my high schooling in Philadelphia. My friends and I decided to bunk high school and take a trip to New York City which was four hours away. I had on a kurta pyjama and chappals that day, and interestingly I hadn’t done my laundry because of the way that we were living. I’m talking about America post-9/11 where wearing a kurta pyjama was the most stupid thing I could have done. I got on the subway, my first subway ride. It was the peak of autumn, so I had a shawl on. I was standing by the door and every time the door opened, the way the shawl fluttered…there was a romance to it, which attracted a lot of attention. I remember there was this one particular person who was very corporate-looking. I think he had just gotten done from work, probably heading home, he was wearing a wedding band, I remember. But he came and he stood in front of me in the subway. There was this heavy exchange that was happening between us, which was very wordless, which I now believe many queer experiences are about. I was 16 and didn’t know what to do about it, but that experience has stayed with me, as a visual, and I knew that one person had to be in kurta pyjamas and the other person in a suit. Art imitates life, life imitates art. It’s an ongoing process, but these stories do come from lived experiences.

In fact, Dhruv [Singhal], the actor who plays the character who wears the kurta pyjama in the film, didn’t own any. So because we had a very tight budget, all the kurta pyjamas and churidars that he’s wearing in the film are from my closet.

You have spoken about wanting to make cinema inclusive. So far you have dealt with queerness. Sisak had a very traditional idea of same-sex dynamics in public spaces, Sheer Qorma introduces another aspect, gender nonconformity. There’s also the Muslim angle in Sheer Qorma. How has your approach evolved in Bun Tikki?

I come from a certain value system where I believe in being unabashedly who I am and in celebrating that all the time. So, most of my stories also find relevance from the world that I belong to. And if I don’t write my stories that way then I’ll be doing an injustice to who I am as a person, as an artiste. Bun Tikki takes that forward in leaps and bounds. I think Bun Tikki could run because Sheer Qorma decided to walk.

I don’t believe in pushing people. I believe in allowing them to embrace my truth that I myself embrace so openly, in their own ways and to the best of their capacities.

How do you approach intersectionality in cinema?

In a very mainstream way, just as I did in Sheer Qorma. I feel the minute you make a Joyland out of it, you are going to alienate your own audiences at home. Audiences here don’t understand something that looks so raw. It makes them uncomfortable. It would make my family uncomfortable as well.

I am speaking to people who I understand, to people in our country. We have not grown up watching world cinema. I have grown up watching Yash Chopra and Rajshri films and all the things that the ’90s and early 2000s put up. I understand that world. I understand that language. So, when you are in a country where everyone speaks in a certain way, you have to speak in that way. If you make something that is so alien to them, even though it is something that can be celebrated in other parts of the world and win big awards…what is the point of doing that if people back home do not get to experience it the way you want it to be experienced?

Of course, people can be brash about it and say, but that’s not my art. That’s not who I am as an artist. Who is an artist then? I feel art needs to be accessible to all. Cinema must be accessible to everyone. It is not an insular form of art. We talk about inclusion all the time, all of us. We sit on big panels talking about inclusion. But are we really inclusive when we try to make cinema on queerness or intersectionality or anything else, for that matter? Will the cinema only cater to people who are already part of that milieu? Who will embrace it and applaud it? What happens to the rest who are not a part of it? Why do we not try to speak to them?

Bun Tikki is your first full-length film. Has your approach to visually presenting queerness grown with your personal journey and increasing understanding of it?

I think more than queerness, it’s about understanding who you are and what you have really set out to do. I grew up in a very unkind world. I want to leave behind a kinder world for generations of children that are to come. As a film-maker, as a storyteller, my intention will always be to leave behind a better world and Bun Tikki comes from that.

I didn’t make Bun Tikki with the intention of celebrating intersectionality or any such thing. I made it with the intention of telling a tale that will let people choose kindness, that will make them understand the power of empathy. Hate — funnily like sympathy — comes so naturally to us. But love and empathy take work, and I feel they need to be inculcated in all of us.

We don’t practise love as an emotion. There’s so much hate that we are bombarded with. Look at the cinema that we are making. It’s dark, it’s gory, it’s violent, it’s people killing people, deceit, lies. I’m tired of it all. I don’t understand that world. I don’t understand those narratives.

When films like Animal are being made and are really shaking up the box office, when toxic masculinity is being embraced and celebrated, I have gone exactly to the opposite side. I’m making a film on tenderness. I’m making a film on how to be more gentle with yourself. Is this rebellion? I don’t know. Is this a way of showing my middle finger to everyone? No, it’s not. It’s my way of telling people, ‘Hey, you can choose to be a different person.’ I want to sell kindness as an emotion, I want to sell empathy. People are selling violence. People are selling anger.  I just choose to sell something else which is close to me and who I am.

The representation of Muslims in mainstream cinema focuses more on the religious identity than their lived experiences. Did this thought play on your mind while making Sheer Qorma?

I made Sheer Qorma for exactly the reason that you mentioned. It was to represent the kind of Muslim family which I come from. I come from a Muslim family where my mother used to wear a sari on Eid, no questions asked. When Sheer Qorma’s trailer launched, I heard someone say, ‘Isn’t this a Muslim family? Why is Shabana wearing a sari?’ I think I said, ‘Sorry, what?’ For them, it was, how can a Muslim woman wear a sari on Eid? For that matter, they think that Muslims are wearing a skull cap all the time, or saying adab and salaam every time they meet each other. Or that women always have a dupatta covering their heads. My mother never wore a dupatta on her head except when she was praying. I wanted to change that narrative because I’ve grown up watching cinema in the ’90s where Muslim representation was so regressive. So I made an intentional choice about the costumes to try and bust the regressive narratives and stereotypes that exist.

What was the thought behind the composition of the six scenes in Sheer Qorma?

Everything was curated, there was nothing in the frame that had not been thought of before. Everything had a relevance and came from a place of lived experience, rather than research, which I think really set the scenes apart. You can’t research these things for no research will say, ‘Oh, if you want to break a stereotype, make a Muslim mother wear a sari’. No research is going to tell you that if you want to break a stereotype, have a non-binary person wear a kurta and a Nehru jacket. These are things that I thought of. Everything — including the colour palette that you see in play, from the walls to the food, to the costumes, to the jewellery, to the henna designs on their palms — was detailed and given to every department, and they just had to replicate it.

Many of the clothes used in the film were from my personal and from my family’s wardrobes. The crystal cutlery on the table was from my house because my production designer could not afford it for the film; it was so expensive. I just said go home and take it, just make sure you don’t break it. They were heirloom pieces from my dadi’s time, and my family would have been very upset if they’d been damaged. And the food that was on the table came from my house.

And of course, there’s the magic that actors also bring with them. I remember I had imagined smaller, daintier earrings for Swara [Bhasker] in the table scene, but the day she came to shoot for that scene, she had carried these big Amrapali heirloom earrings that belonged to her nani. She showed them to me, and asked, ‘What do you think?’ I said, ‘My God, they’re too big’. But, she felt they honoured her nani and she told me that she would like to wear them. And so she did. So, that kind of inclusion also happens. So it’s a little bit from here, and a little bit from there, but my intention is to create something which comes from a place of truth. It’s always that. In Bun Tikki, for example, I’ve used many of my childhood clothes. Since the stories are predominantly about a father and his child, you will see a lot of my old cardigans and jumpers in the film.

Did you refer to any family photos for Sheer Qorma? What were your visual references?

My visual archive usually is the closet. I’m a very visual person. I remember things in my mind. But when I was doing Sheer Qorma, I remember I sat in front of my mother’s closet for like an hour, just looking at the colours, looking at the jewellery that she wears. And then I asked her, ‘Would you wear this [jewellery] on Eid?’ And she said, ‘It depends on what I’m wearing.’ ‘Okay, so what if you’re wearing this or that’, and then she’s like, ‘Maybe I’ll have pearls with it.’ I thought, who wears pearls on Eid? She said, ‘I’d wear it.’ I said, ‘Do Muslims wear pearls?’ And she’s like, ‘I like it and I wear it, right?’

So then I asked her how many strands she would wear. She told me that it would depend on what neckline the blouse had. And, I went, ‘Oh, is that how it is linked?’ So that’s how I learn. And then I put it together, and I see, and I feel like, oh, this looks nice. Let's recreate that. It's like trial and error, but I know that this is the space I want to create. For Priya’s (Malik) and Swara’s costumes, I initially asked them to look into their own closets, and they sent me options which did not feel like Eid at my house. And I immediately understood that it was because they don’t really celebrate Eid. Divya ended up wearing the clothes that I had worn three years earlier for Eid — I actually have pictures of myself in the same outfit.

But for Jitin Gulati, who plays Shannu (Shahnawaz, the brother), I could not look inside my closet and drag something out because he’s a straight man. He’s not going to wear something that I wear. So then we had to find a ‘straight-ish’ kurta for him.

Even the namaaz ka dupatta is my mother’s in the film. There was no styling to it, it was just thrown on. Shabana, before going to bed, asked me, how do you want the hair to be? And I remember my mother always used to wear a plait to bed. I said, just plait it. So she sat and she did it. So it’s unruly, not combed at all. I said, let's go with that. You don’t have a hairstylist at home to do it, so that’s how natural it is.

For Kalyani [Mulay] — who played Shobha the house help — I didn't even open Pinterest to look up references. I have had the privilege of growing up with very interesting house helps. One of them, whose name was Shobha — I used the name in the film — always used to show up in the crispest of saris. They were like wafer chips. And she always had mogra flowers around her bun. So when I was creating the character, I always imagined her wearing these nice cotton saris with borders.

You were working in a remote location for Bun Tikki. How did you choose or create your sets?

Did you know that we didn’t build a single set for Bun Tikki except for the climax scene? Everything was shot on live locations. It was a real moment in Shimla. It was a real school in Nainital in which we shot. There’s a technique in cinema called point-and-shoot. You point a camera and you shoot. You would probably adjust a chair, throw in a rug, or whatever, but that’s it. You don't get to change much of it. And because we had done a recce, we had the colours with us, and then we went backwards with the colour building of the costumes. And I didn't really have to fight very much with Manish, because Manish and I think on similar lines and in similar universes. I feel he added more to my vision in the costumes and just kind of expanded what the heart of the film was. There’s one thing to have the heart, and there's another thing to create a universe out of the heart. 

And, of course, there’s Akshay Tyagi who did the costumes for Bun Tikki — for Abhay Deol, the schoolchildren and some of the other cast members. He added little things that brought so much of vibrancy and value to the palette of the film — the boy’s clothes, the uniform, the bags, the shoes and the accessories.

How much has your own journey with queerness affected your approach to queerness on screen?

It does have its effects. Initially, there used to be a lot of editing I used to do of myself so that what I could present on screen is more palatable. But now I come from a place of my real-life experiences. But authenticity at times is very hard to replicate on screen. How do you amalgamate a year of queer experiences into the amount of time you have on screen? But there’s a way to do it, and I feel that way only comes with surrendering yourself when you’re writing, especially while you are world-building. Queerness also, I personally feel, should not be overdone. The audience should be fed to a point and then you must let everyone derive their own conclusions.

What are the personal observations that you’ve noticed — that you always keep in mind when you are showing characters who are close to your world?

If the character is very close to who I am, I would want to dress them up in something that I would feel comfortable wearing. If the person is not close to who I am, then I'll try and find the closest person in my life and think of what they would wear. But I have very interesting characters in Bun Tikki, who are people that I’ve always wanted in my life but I've never really had. And so when I think of what they’d be wearing, I imagine those clothes on the people who I really like in real life.

How much of your fashion has been inspired by artistic mediums such as film and fine art?

One of my biggest inspirations is everything vintage. I personally love looking at Mughal paintings. If I was living in a universe where I could actually just wear whatever I wanted to wear, I would wear a jama or angrakha every day with maybe no churidaar. Just that and throw in a big, comfortable, cosy shawl that feels like a warm hug. But there are also days when I will wake up and be like I want to wear a sweatshirt today. I have a Pinterest board called ‘Stuff Made of Dreams’, which is exclusively vintage pieces from Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent but more importantly, a lot of Victoria and Albert Museum collections of the Mughal period.

If I want to make something, the first thing I’ll think of is making something Mughal in brocade, maybe a jama. The other day, I was going through a book at Manish’s office, and I found this very interesting brocade three-piece outfit. They were trousers or pyjamas with a shortish kurta and it had a lovely jacket on top. But the jacket was also a little like an angrakha. I put it on my (Instagram) story, and I said, is there anyone who can make this for me? A lot of people reached out saying they could. So I requested them to send me fabric options, and when they did that, I realised that it’s the fabric that makes a difference. We’ve stopped making that sort of fabric. Unless I find that, it’s not gonna fly.

When I am travelling, I have to immediately do two things. First, I go to a grocery store to find out what people eat. Second, I go to vintage thrift stores. I was in Brattleboro in Vermont, for Christmas and New Year in 2019 and I went to a small antique store. They had these vintage Chanel jackets and YSL jewellery and like, wow. And then, randomly, out of nowhere, I saw a jama there. How had this landed up here? I tried it on and it was a little oversized and that was okay. I said, I'm not even thinking, I’m just buying it. I got it, and it’s been the only jama which I sort of like. All the other jamas that I have got made, I have thrown away, because nothing feels like the old jamas.

As an artist, you are likely to notice the details that everybody else might miss. What are your observations on presentation through gender, for example? Do you just note it as something that exists as is?

I personally feel that learning never really stops. Even when I’m not in work mode, I am in work mode. Because observing, sort of making notes and clicking mental pictures, it never really stops for me. I was out for dinner two nights ago, and I was more interested in what was happening on the table next to mine. It was a very interesting conversation about some extramarital affair. I was so invested that I started observing the colours, cuts and jewellery that they were wearing even though the food had arrived on my table. So I feel that that sort of observational learning that I’ve always been into never really stops. How people speak, how they react, what they speak about, the tonality of it, the colours — that’s just one thing to present in cinema, certain aesthetics — but there's an aesthetic that we all have in our day-to-day lives. How do you match that with that? It has to be an intermediate of the two. It can't be so aspirational that no one can even relate to it. So the aesthetics of cinema has to be aspirational but with relatability attached to it.