· The film titled ‘Kya YahiPyar Hai’ aims to break the taboos on controlling relationships among young unmarried couples of all genders in India
· The launch will be preceded by a panel discussion attended by key activists, academicians and bloggers.
Mumbai, 14th June 2017: Keeping in tune with its agenda on creating awareness among the youth in the country, Love Matters India is launching the first 360/VR film on the issue of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) in Delhi and Mumbai on the 17th June 2017. The film ‘Kya YahiPyar Hai’ will use virtual to narrate a powerful story and connect with young people. The short film has been conceptualized, scripted and produced by Love matters India and Co- directed by Gayatri Parameswaran from NoWhereMedia.
The film ‘Kya YahiPyarhai’ was conceptualized by Love Matters India to generate awareness against controlling relationships that are seen and understood by the young people as caring ones, reiterated by the popular culture. Intimate Partner is defined as "any behavior within an intimate relationship that causes physical, psychological or sexual harm to those in the relationship, including acts of physical aggression, sexual coercion, psychological abuse and controlling behaviors."Social norms are identified as the dominant drivers for IPV in India. However, there is a high level of reluctance from both men and women victims to talk about violence in their relationship.
Speaking on the above initiative Vithika Yadav, Head of Love Matters India said”The idea of this film is to help young people reflect on their own relationships and realize the difference between caring and controlling behaviour. Very often controlling behavior is confused as caring behavior by young people. Talk about being possessive, having control over your partner’s choices, whereabouts etc. are some of the very common signs of what could be an abusive relationship. Unfortunately, popular culture often normalizes this controlling behavior as love. By integrating technology creatively in the work we do, we aim to connect more with our young target audience by enabling them to get a realistic immersive experience of what is intimate partner violence.“
Sharing her experience while making the film, Co-Director of the film, Gayatri Parameswaran said, “Directing this 360/VR experience was challenging on many levels. Firstly, we had to leave the scene every time we hit record because we couldn’t be in the film. In 360, everything is captured. So it helped that we trusted the actor, Arjun, quite a lot. And for him it was difficult too - acting with a camera as your opposing character, isn’t easy! But I’m glad about how it has all shaped up.”
As part of this campaign Love Matters India has partnered with Social Offline in Delhi and Mumbai, a chain of pubs/ restaurants, to install 360 film viewing booth with VR headsets. The Delhi Metro will also have film viewing booths set up across 10 metro stations in Delhi for 10 days. The launch will be kick started by a Panel discussion on the topic “Control and Care in popular Culture in India” followed by the screening of the film.
About Love Matters:
Love Matters is a global multimedia project engaging young people to talk about love, sex and relationships, with a presence in 5 countries around the world: India, Kenya, China, Latin America (Mexico and Venezuela) and Egypt. Love Matters believes love, sex and relationships should be a right, a choice, and a pleasure. The first step towards making this possible and having an impact on young people’s lives is offering access to information. LM India is the first bilingual sexual reproductive health (SRH) site to offer comprehensive youth-friendly information in English and Hindi. Since the launch of the bilingual site on January 14, 2014, it has had over 20 million yearly visitors, and has the current website monthly reach of 2 million visitors. Their Facebook community has a following of more than one million making it the most popular sexual health Facebook page in India.