Producers Cathy Rodda and Lisa Duff have joined Anupam Sharma’s feature Honour, with the social thriller to be presented at India’s Film Bazaar, the largest South Asian film market, later this month.
Rodda will produce the project, with Duff as an executive producer alongside Sharam.
Honour, based on true events, follows Durga, who comes to Australia with high hopes only to be met with deceit, domestic and dowry abuse, and visa regulations. Forum Films acquired distribution rights for Australia, New Zealand, Fiji Islands, and Papua New Guinea in 2019.
The real-life Indian Australian stories on which the film is based were resourced through Professor Manjula Datta O’Connor, who led a campaign for dowry abuse to be criminalised in Australia.
Speaking to IF, Rodda says teaming up with Sharma is “like a meeting of minds” and notes she was drawn to the film as an opportunity to “help champion voices and elevate stories.”
“I think [Sharma and I] both bring really a complementary set of skills, experience, and contacts. That is going to be able to help us get this film into production in the first half of next year.”
Rodda explains Honour is based off years of research, helped in part by Professor O’Connor. This research will make the film an “organic fusion of what it is to be Australian and Indian.”
“It is very much about telling stories from our local community by our local community. It is about a social issue which is important and needs addressing. It’s a drama with a thriller twist so from a story point of view I think it’s something that will definitely be engaging for the audience.”
Speaking of the film, O’Connor says: “It is so encouraging that such a high-powered team will be showcasing this important issue through the effective tool of cinema and support social change.”
Sharma seconds the need for this film, “This is one Australian story which needs to be told and now.”
Honour is currently in the final stages of development, with Rodda hoping for name Indian actors which will “appeal to both the international and local audiences.”
Funding has begun through private investment interest out of India and the US, with the team looking forward to the Indian Film Bazaar. Rodda and Sharma will be hosted by the co-production market for curated one on one meetings with financiers and co-producers from around the world.
Honour is “going to show best practice as well as shine a light onto some of the situations that Australian-Indians face”, Rodda says, noting it will have “a great story, a great cast, great performances, and be visually stunning.”
Production of Honour is set to start in the first half of 2023 in Victoria. Film Bazaar is held in Goa, India November 20-24.