After a barrage of tweets from the creative community and a scathing post by filmmaker Vikramaditya Motwane, ALT Balaji acknowledged that the uncanny similarities between the posters of His Storyy and Loev “cannot be a mere coincidence”. On April 9, the OTT platform had released the first poster of His Storyy, which saw Satyadeep Mishra and Mrinal Dutt lying in bed, embracing each other. Soon, Sudhanshu Saria, who had helmed indie film Loev (2015), took to Twitter to point out that the image was a rip-off of his film’s poster. Three days since, as the Ekta Kapoor-headed platform issued an apology, Saria says the incident is a symptom of a deeper problem plaguing Indian showbiz.

“The fact that so many creative people spoke up reflects that plagiarism is a normalised part of our industry. Sattu [Mishra] and Suparn [Varma, writer] texted me within minutes of my post. Photographer Jitu Savlani indicated that [the team] was asked to recreate our poster. I understand someone getting inspired by our poster because it captures intimacy well, but this is a [blatant] recreation, with even the colour palette [being retained],” he fires. 

The filmmaker, who was delivered his National Award for Knock Knock Knock last week, is shocked at the lack of respect for originality. “They didn’t even give Jitu the chance to do better. After this happened, I haven’t received a single call from the producers or the platform. They made a mistake; they said sorry. Why am I supposed to feel grateful that they apologized? I want Balaji’s show to do well. I could’ve lent them a few original ideas — they could’ve put Sattu and Priyamani on the bed, and had Mrinal’s illustration on top to depict that a third person has entered their marriage.”

After this episode, Saria has a singular appeal to producers — to encourage creative ingenuity instead of resorting to plagiarism. “Balaji isn’t the only company that does this; the problem runs deeper. Let’s not forget it’s the same production house that financed Lootera [2013] and ensured Lipstick Under My Burkha [2017] gets a theatrical release. I urge producers to be respectful of the collaborative process. I am not propagating cancel culture.”

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Subhash K Jha (DNA; May 8, 2017)

We’ve seen the talented Shiv Pandit make a solid impact in Bejoy Nambiar’s Shaitaan. Now the young actor returns in director Sudhanshu Saria’s Loev in a bold avatar as a closeted gay NRI yuppie, discovering and celebrating his sexual orientation in the company of a young out-of-the-closet gay young man, played by Dhruv Ganesh who died soon after the film was completed.

The film has some of the most explicit same-sex intimacy seen in cinema, including lengthy lip-locks between Shiv and Dhruv and a shocking rape sequence where Shiv’s character violates Dhruv in a hotel room. Shiv says he had no qualms shooting these scenes. “From the moment I heard the script I knew this was a film I had to do. For too long now I’ve been listening to others give me advice on how to conduct my career and what kind of roles to accept. Now for a change I wanted to listen to my own heart. Every instinct told me to go for the part.”

Didn’t the shooting of lovemaking scenes with Dhruv pose practical emotional and physical difficulties? Shiv admits it was tough. “Rape is equally reprehensible whether it happens to a man or a woman. What I did to overcome my revulsion was to not stand judgment over my character Jai’s action. I just went with how Jai reacted to the given situation.”

The rape and kissing scenes are shockingly graphic. Says Shiv, “What we shot was much more lengthy, graphic and with lots more nudity. The rape was far longer and all done in one take. The pivotal kiss between Dhruv and I was also much longer. Sudhanshu decided to cut both the scenes as he didn’t want the intimacy to overcome the relationship between the two protagonists. Shooting these scenes was tough and when they were cut I was disappointed. I was like, ‘Why did you make us go through it if you didn’t want it to be so lengthy?’ But we went completely by the director’s vision, and it came out effectively.”

Shiv confesses he has still not come to terms with Dhruv’s death. “He’s with us everywhere that Sudhanshu and I go with our film. It is impossible to accept that he’s gone. We’ve taken Dhruv’s parents with us to film festivals abroad. Seeing them, we are constantly reminded of Dhruv and the immense loss. One day he was with us, the next day he was gone.”

Not that Shiv had forged an exceptionally close bonding with Dhruv during the film’s shooting. “I deliberately kept a distance from him because my character Jai is constantly on the edge with Dhruv’s character Sahil. I saw Jai as repressed and stressed emotionally, professionally and sexually. I wanted that tension to come across in my relationship with Dhruv’s character. Bonding as buddies off screen would have taken away from the sexual tension between us on screen.”

Any reservations about having played a gay man? “None. I was advised against it. I was told my career would be finished if I play a gay character. On the contrary, I’ve never been more appreciated for any of my roles. My mother was initially taken aback when she saw the film. But she got the point better than people who believe an actor playing a homosexual would be branded unemployable.”

Sudhanshu Saria, the writer-director and co-producer of Loev, talks about what inspired him to make the film
Renuka Vyavahare (BOMBAY TIMES; May 3, 2017)

BOMBAY TIMES (April 22, 2017)

Loev is a layered touching film and can’t be called just another film on homosexuals. The characters are not stereotyped and their emotions and conflicts, most of the times, are shown in a subtle manner. A lot has been left for the audience’s interpretation which is great but at some places, it confuses audiences as well. Shiv Pandit is exceptional. He has a great screen presence and this role required him to speak a lot through his silences. And he does so beautifully. Dhruv Ganesh is also superb – one can’t take one’s eyes off him. He too maintains a strong position of his own. It is unfortunate that this actor, who debuted in Teen Patti, is no more. Siddharth Menon raises laughs and also touches viewers in a small role. Sherri Kauk’s cinematography is too good – the Mahabaleshwar scenes are beautifully captured. Sudhanshu Saria’s direction is great and it is impressive how he managed to take so many long shots. He was present at the Q & A session post the screening and he revealed how he shot at Mumbai’s T2 airport without permission! Hats off!

My rating - *** out of 5!

Chaya Unnikrishnan (DNA; October 14, 2016)

Shiv Pandit is on cloud nine. Two of his films Loev and Mantra will be screened at the upcoming Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI), Film Festival. While Loev directed by Sudhanshu Saria is competing in the Gold Section, Mantra helmed by debutant Nicholas Khargonkor will be screened at the India Story section. Shiv enthuses, "I always had this wish that if I ever attend MAMI it will be with my film. Now, I have two films and both are completely different."

While, Loev is about the growing romance between two men, Mantra is the story of an industrialist and his dysfunctional family that gets affected when an MNC takes over the company.

Best known for the film Shaitaan, it was at a time when Shiv was doing films like Boss and Mumbai Delhi that he met the director of Loev. "He just happened to meet me casually, because we are from the same school. He had no desire to cast me, he didn't even want to tell me the story because he thought I do only commercial films. I had to force it out of him. But when I heard it I found it interesting and we decided to do it," says Shiv.

Didn't he have any apprehensions about doing a film on homosexuality? "The film is about love - sexuality and gender doesn't matter. The whole object of the film is that just because the word love is spelled differently it does not mean it's not love. It's the emotion which is the focus. My character is in love with another person and it's an emotion that works in a mysterious way." Yet, they had to shoot the film in secret, given the political climate and the fact that society doesn't deem it fit. "We didn't want to get into any hassles since our production was tight," says Shiv, who feels the film helped him lose all his inhibitions. "I used to do a lot of theatre where there are no retakes.That excitement was lacking in films. But Loev was challenging because I had never explored this territory," he adds.

The film has been screened at various international film festivals in Germany, Mexico, America and London among others. Not only has it won acclaim, It has been hailed as a progressive Indian film from a Western stand point.

And now, Shiv is eagerly looking forward to the response the film gets in India. Talking about Mantra, Shiv says that he didn't think twice about taking up the role as it had stars of calibre like Rajat Kapoor, Kalki Koechlin and Adil Hussain. "Also the film is inspired from a real incident and is about fractured inter-personal relationships, which is interesting," he signs off.