Love on film

When Poppy Stockell created a profile on a lesbian website, being out and proud for over 10 years, she felt a bit embarrassed looking for love online.

But as a filmmaker she couldn’t pass up the desire to document the intensely personal journey of girl-meets-girl for her first feature.

It began with a girl who called herself “Shola”.

“She sent me a smile and we clicked instantly. I could feel it coming out through the computer,” Stockell said.

“Shola” revealed herself to be Sandeep Virdi, an Anglo-Indian Sikh who lived on opposite side of the world in the British Midlands. She hadn’t come out to her family with whom she still lived: conservative religious parents, five sisters and a brother.

“You couldn’t get a more polar opposite from my life,” Stockell said.

After a month of online chatting, Stockell knew the video diary would need to be told from both sides, and told Virdi about the documentary that would be named after her: Searching For Sandeep.

“She thought it was a fantastic idea. I sent a camera to her in London and she started filming her life,” Stockell said.

While both recorded piece to camera video diaries, Virdi’s younger siblings played with the camera and it became part of the background as they filmed everything.

“It’s amazing how unobtrusive it is. The camera recorded amazingly personal and unaware, unselfconscious moments in the household,” Stockell said.

But as the relationship grew and the distance between them remained, they decided to meet halfway to see if it was as real as they hoped.

“It was really nerve-racking. I brought a cameraman with me to document the first four days. Then we travelled around, and it was like `where do we go from here?’, ” Stockell said.

Knowing it wasn’t the same going back to just checking messages online, Stockell packed up her stuff and set off for England.

Virdi had told her parents about the relationship, but they thought it was a phase, so she arranged for Stockell to meet them.

“When I walked in that door it all became very real for her family and her community,” Stockell said.

“Sandeep got disowned by her family and chucked out of her home. Which inadvertently pushed us together as she was forced to live with me.

“She didn’t want to live a lie. So often gay and lesbian people in her community go through the motions, get married and live a double life.”

Despite the taboo of homosexuality in the Sikh-Indian community, Virdi felt no conflict between her sexuality and her religion. But she missed her family terribly.

“Then one day her mother called, and that changed everything,” Stockell said.

Stockell said she didn’t think there would be the intensity of drama when she first began the documentary, but now having gone under the camera herself, she knows what she’s asking future subjects.

“Sandeep trusted me and my judgement to have honesty and integrity in telling the story. She felt if she was going to come out she was going to do it in style.”

But Stockell initially wasn’t sure what she was getting herself in for.

“I did a piece to camera early where I worried she’s not even out; she’s never experimented with drugs, she hasn’t had many sexual partners. It’s a massive responsibility for me.

“It’s probably a good thing I didn’t think about it too much,” she said.

Now living in London together, both will attend the premiere of the documentary in Sydney.

Searching For Sandeep screens on 24 June at the Sydney Film Festival. Information and bookings on www.sydneyfilmfestival.org.