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Facebook Fans Fund Gay Bollywood Film

Facebook Fans Fund Gay Bollywood Film

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Bollywood's only openly gay director says his film I Am, which opens Friday, was funded in large part through money he collected on his Facebook page.

Onir, who goes by a single name, says producers were scared off by the film's risque content, which includes child sexual abuse, police harassment of gay men, and a single woman's search for a sperm donor.

He says he raised about one third of the 30 million rupees ($675,000) budget through donations, most of them from a network of Facebook contacts.

"Thank you all for being a part of I Am," he wrote on his Facebook page. "I am because you are."

Onir is no stranger to struggling to get his films made. His first film, My Brother ... Nikhil, sat unproduced for years because producers were bothered by the story of a gay Indian man who fights discrimination after being diagnosed with HIV.

Read more here.

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