Agency [Pre-Feature Short]

When a gay male South Asian couple propositions their Indian-American actress best-friend to become their surrogate, their new arrangement creates more problems than it solves.

Director

An alumnus of MacArthur Award-winning dance theatre Susan Marshall & Company, Omar Rahim has performed internationally at venues including the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Jacob’s Pillow, New York’s Joyce Theatre and the Edinburgh Festival. His stage work as a choreographer/director has been presented at Dance Theatre Workshop and Symphony Space in New York, at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, at the Bates Dance Festival in Lewiston, Maine and most recently at the Sindh Festival in Karachi, Pakistan. Omar’s international film and television choreo-direction credits include Sesame Workshop’s revival of Sesame Street in the US, consulting for the Universal Studios feature comedy The Guru, the Engro Excellence Awards (2011) and the Lux Style Awards (2002, 2003, 2006) in Pakistan. Omar also starred in multi-award-winning film Meherjaan shot in Bangladesh co-starring Jaya Bachchan and Victor Banerjee, set in the prelude of the 1971 Bangladesh War. His US television credits include co-star roles in Person of Interest (CBS) and Startup (Sony Crackle). Omar is one of seven founders of the Citizens Archive of Pakistan, an NGO committed to the preservation and promotion of Pakistan’s cultural identity through a wide range of arts and humanities programs. Omar has also served as a global leader as part of the Asia Society’s Asia 21 program and recently participated in Reversible, a global conference on arts, activism and identity hosted by the NYU Abu Dhabi Institute. Omar served on the board of Peacheniche, a Karachi-based non-profit that fosters democratic discourse and conflict resolution through intellectual and cultural engagement from 2016 through 2017. Agency is his first film as producer/writer/director.

Director’s Note: My inspiration for writing Agency is my community. Many of my lesbian couple friends have had children using sperm donors. Gay male friends have had children through surrogates. Some queer couple friends have adopted children of races different from their own, others have created arrangements to have and raise children together without being sexual partners. The family unit as we know it has transformed, especially in cosmopolitan centers like New York. While such themes have been explored deftly in a variety of media in the US, I haven’t seen that many satisfying stories located at the intersection of South Asian and LGBTQ identities, especially in the context of starting and raising a non-traditional family.

Agency explores the boundaries of friendship and fidelity between a gay male couple and their single female friend whom they proposition to become their surrogate. All three are of South Asian origin, (one is Pakistani-American while the other two are Indian-American), adding an extra layer of complexity to the story. While the story of Agency could easily play out with characters of any race or ethnicity, I believe contextualizing the narrative in the South Asian American community makes it much more specific and interesting.

In terms of genre, Agency is a dramedy or comedic drama. While I wanted the desires as well as obstacles of the characters to be major, I tried to mine the humor and absurdity in the narrative. I hope that we succeeded in deepening rather than trivializing the story with our at times playful treatment of the material!

Festivals/Awards

Kashish Mumbai International Queer Film Festival 2019