Tag Archives: The Other Love Story

Indian-Made Lesbian Web Series Gets Highest Nominations at NYC Web Fest

Filmmaker Roopa Rao’s debut web series The Other Love Story is an innocent love story between two girls set in the 90’s era in India.

After facing rejection from several producers, Roopa turned to crowdfunding to help bring this original and realistic story to the society, now the web series is leading nominations at the NYC Web Fest, with six nominations.

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Roopa says,

When I made this series, I had no expectations about what I wanted from it or where it would go. I just wanted it to release and share the story, and hoped that people were engaged and entertained with each episode. I am thrilled that we have been noticed by a platform like this and that we are competing on a global level for some of the top awards at the festival.”

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Roopa says that though her project deals with a sensitive topic and the medium she chose to narrate it on wasn’t conventional, she was glad she did it.

This project happened organically. I have been a writer and like to tell stories. I must have written this story when I was in college. But I was waiting for someone else to make it because I didn’t know how to. Since then, I kept thinking of a web series because video-sharing channels started monetizing it. This was a great platform for storytellers like us who want to tell something as it is and with freedom of expression. It took me some time to research the medium, and given that it doesn’t require big budgets and there is no distributor in between who you have to satisfy, I found the medium encouraging. Also, when I approached producers, they were apprehensive due to the subject and the medium. In that way, it has been a long journey and fight, but here we are today, with nominations at a festival like this and it has been worth it.”

India Finally Portrays A Lesbian Relationship In New Web Series ‘The Other Love Story’

Members of the LGBT community have a very hard time in India because under Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, homosexuality is punishable by law and the subject is pretty much taboo.

In that respect alone The Other Love Story is a ground-breaking move. The series is set in Bangalore in the 1990’s and portrays the love story between two young women, Aachal and Aadya.

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During this era lesbian relationships were very much in the closet (even more so than they are now) and the first episode shows them both meeting each other for the first time.

The audience very quickly gets a sense of the ordinariness of the girls lives and they start to grow closer as they interact in person and over the phone. There is an innocence about them both as they explore their feelings for each other.

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Heterosexual relationships are hard enough in India as family, politics and attitudes play a strict part in whether they are deemed suitable by others, which means LGBT relationships are pretty much impossible to carry out. This is why this web series is so desperately needed, not just for lesbian women in India, but to women anywhere that are still in the closet or are dealing with prejudice from others regarding their sexuality.

A few weeks ago a lesbian couple from Mumbai both tried to commit suicide as they had been forbidden to see each other after someone reported them for cuddling. One succeeded and died while the other survived.

This is a tragic example of what can happen to members of the LGBT community in India when others find out about their relationship. Falling in love is not a crime and more recognition is needed in the media.

The Other Love Story is a step in the right direction as it normalizes same sex relationships. Falling in love is not a crime. Prejudice and homophobia is.