Shamim Sarif Interview

31 March 2009

Shamim Sarif (right) with her partner Hanan

Having established herself as a successful novelist, Shamim Sarif decided to venture into film directing. Her current release is an adaptation of her novel I Can't Think Straight, a lesbian romantic comedy. I caught up with Shamim to find out a bit more about it.

I Can’t Think Straight is about to be released in the UK. What was the inspiration behind the film? Is it based on your own experiences?

There’s definitely a little bit written from our own experiences for sure because there’s an element of autobiography in the film and it’s the culture clashes and the emotional journey’s that the girls go through.

So that was definitely there but heavily fictionalised, and we decided to go a romantic comedy route which we thought was a nice way to explore some quite heavy subjects.

Do you think that the humour conveyed is a good way of mocking the prejudices it addresses?

Yes I do. I think humour is a great tool. I think it’s also very British, humour in many ways. To look at the rye side, it can seem quite heavy at the time and I think it’s a great way to lighten the view. I didn’t want to preach to people, I wanted people to go in and enjoy the movie both in groups and in couples, and really enjoy themselves. And if they feel that they can learn something while they’re enjoying themselves, so much the better.

The movie addresses many social issues, one being Indian culture and homosexuality. Is this something that Indian families are learning to come to terms with or is it still something that is frowned upon?

I think a bit of both in the sense that I hope things are beginning to change slowly. Change like that doesn’t happen overnight because in many Indian cultures and many western cultures, until very recently it’s been a huge taboo so it takes time for that but I do hope that people do come to terms with it sooner than later because I think it causes a lot of conflict and confusion where hopefully there doesn’t need to be any.

Another theme is finding one’s place within culture and the family. Is this something that you personally struggled with?

I think a little bit in the sense that whatever culture or community you’re brought up in, I think there’s always room for questioning and I think that’s the core theme of I Can’t Think Straight and The World Unseen, our other film.

People who question and people who kind of push boundaries - that’s the way things change and how people’s humanity progresses. And there are often charismatic people, those people who are willing to think a little differently from those around them, so it’s often enjoyable to spend time with them in a movie theatre, or in a book.

This is your first film as a director. How did you find the transition from novelist to director. Were you slightly apprehensive about it?

I was apprehensive but I did take to it, I have to say because it was really being thrown in at the deep end. But I loved it. I think as a novelist you work very much alone but as a director you have collaboration with hopefully many talented people and that’s the part I enjoyed the most.

Your partner Hanan produced the film. What was it like working with her?

It was fantastic working with her. She’s really very driven, very passionate about what she does. It’s always inspiring to be around somebody like that. On top of that I think she’s very helpful to me creatively, she really understands what we’re trying to do with the stories and would move heaven and earth to make it happen. They wouldn’t have happened without her these movies.

Was it easy finding the right women to play the lead roles?

No it wasn’t at first. I had in mind a British Asian actress and a British Arab actress and both of them had issues with the love scenes which I thought was odd because they were not particularly intense.

I mean there are a couple of love scenes between them but I think they’re tastefully done and within the context. So we ended up looking further a field and I was thrilled that I got to work with Lisa Ray and Sheetal Sheth who are very accomplished actresses. And they did a great job.

You used the same actresses for your other film The World Unseen. Why was that?

I think it was a great experience working with them the first time. The World Unseen reverses their roles. The one who’s the introvert becomes the extrovert one and vice versa. It’s a testimony to their ability I think. And Lisa Ray was attached to that movie for quite some time. I did cast around again, I didn’t want to stay in the comfort zone but, in the end, I think these two had a really amazing chemistry on screen.

The film was released in the US before the UK. How was it received there?

Really well. We sold out in the cinema’s while we were there. It was first in all the cinema’s that we were in. So it was really a great response from the audience and it was really wonderful to see it play in New York and LA and Toronto, all the big cities.

I read that you thought most of the men on set were chauvinistic, is this true?

It was on I Can’t Think Straight sadly. We had a very difficult first financier who didn’t pay people, who was just very unethical and immoral in his way of working and he surrounds himself with people who gravitated to that so they tended not to be a very helpful bunch of guys.

It just so happened when we fought for the film and got it back in court the second time around, that we had to have mostly female investors. We were just looking for people who were excited about the movie, and really understood the core themes of it - the integrity, being true to yourself and, in this case, the story, so we were very lucky the second time around.

The film features music from Leonie Casanova. What is it about her that made you approach her?

I think she has an incredible combination of the most beautiful lyrics and really beautiful melodies. It’s kind of something you can listen to and hum along to but if you listen to it five times you’ll hear more and more in the lyrics every time.

Brilliant singer, very beautiful woman as well and when we just saw her on stage when we were still prepping the movie we just looked at each other and said, this woman’s got to write something for us. So we’re really thrilled to have her on board. Her singles are being released both from the film as well at the end of March.

What would you say the overall message of the film is and what effect would you like it to have on people?

I think the overall message is, to find true love you have to be true to yourself first. I think that’s relevant whether you are gay, straight, black, white, anything. I think it’s relevant to everybody that you have to be comfortable with who you are and know who you are before you can really find that true love and not expect somebody to come and rescue you.

You've said that you love film. What is your favourite film of all time?

That’s a tough one, it depends which day you ask me! I’d have to pick one quite recently and say The Hours. I thought it was a great film. Beautiful scenes and great females stories as well.

Have you any plans for future novels or films in the pipeline?

Absolutely. We’ve just published the novel of I Can’t Think Straight in England and in the USA, so that’s out now. We’re working on another British film called The Dream Inspires which is a love story set in Oxford between a young female professor and her student, a young man from America who takes geography. So it’s a kind of delicate love story.

I Can't Think Straight opens in the UK on 3 April 2009