EXCLUSIVE | Somen Mishra on Amazon Prime Video's 'Love Storiyaan': 'The last love story that was made was Kabir Singh and...'

Amazon Prime Video’s ‘Love Storiyaan’ chronicles the journey of six couples, how the twain met, the conflicts they faced, and all their moments of passion and tinges of grief through recorded interviews, anecdotes, and actual footages. The directors here are Hardik Mehta, Vivek Soni, Shazia Iqbal, Rahul Badwelkar, Akshay Indikar, Archana Phadke and Collin D’Cunha.

In an exclusive interview with Firstpost, the creator Somen Mishra, and three directors Archana, Vivek, and Hardik, spoke about the idea of the anthology and their respective stories.

Somen, how did the idea of making the series come about?

Thanks to this lovely page called India Love Project, they curate so many stories which are more beyond heteronormative ideas of love. And so, we would read the stories and there are a lot of friends who also got profiles. We knew them, but we didn’t know their love story. So it got us excited. And we’re thinking, actually, I should be love story. What is the last love story you could think of? Kabir Singh, maybe, if you call that a love story. So we thought we should do an episode. And everyone was asking, we should have more love stories and why they’re not, when there’s a dearth of that. So then we pitched it to Amazon. Initially, we thought we’ll make it a fictional series, but these people, these real people are so exciting. They fought all these people they’re against, whatever the odds they were against, they fought and survived and they’re still not bitter about it. They are so hopeful. We thought if we could profile these real people, that would be much more inspirational.

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Hardik, I really enjoyed your story, An Unsuitable Girl. I mean, she’s somebody who discovers love at the age of 40 and that too in the confined office space. So how was it like directing it?

I think the challenge here was that, okay, I know how to make documentary, but here is here is an opportunity with an international platform and a film that will go to 200 countries

with a production house as reputed as Dharma. So the challenge was that, okay, I know how to make a documentary, but do I know how to make a documentary for these kind of factors pulled in also, you know, so that was something that was a good challenge, I would say, because I had also worked in fiction. So I was very very happy to be a part of a series like this and also in today’s times when we are actually being able to do so many different formats whether it is a Netflix or an Amazon original series or whether it’s an OTT film or a theatrical film or a docu or short film whatever like you know so I am game for all of them. And I think each story suits its own format.

Vivek, in your story, two people that are working for rival channels discover their love for each other. So how much of your own personality, your own experiences have you used in this film?

What I have seen before with Samve was related in a way to this story was, you know, like one of my relatives back in… I am from Rajasthan, Delaware. Okay. So he was… He, you know, he got married at the age of 50. So then a lot of restriction and opposition had come into the picture while he was trying to do that. He was trying to get married again. So that aspect somehow which is considered a taboo in a small town, that what is the need of marriage now, you know, you are 50 now. So people don’t understand the importance of companionship.

Archana in your story, the conflict that the couple has to go through is war. And we see footages from the war in Afghanistan. But still they are able to find love for each other. Do you genuinely feel love can conquer all?

I do feel that for sure. I mean, all of us are looking for that all the time. And the thing is that like war is probably you know, if war was not there in their life, they would have overcome some other conflict. It could be that like, you know, that they would have some really mundane things to fight about and, and in that also there is beauty. Like, someone’s life can become so boring and doing the same things every day. But to live that every day is love also, you know, in this sense, yes, they did overcome war and they remained positive.

Somen, what I like about Love Storiyaan is that there are no stars, there is no trace of vanity, we see common people, ordinary people. Do you feel the charm of this series lies exactly in that fact?

Yes, exactly. You know, and that’s why we discarded the idea of making it fictional, because there are too many fictional anthologies and also rarely you get to see real people and their love stories. I don’t know any OTT platform has something like this even we haven’t done though Dharma does so many love stories. So this was a chance to feature these real people who have fought bravely against all these odds and survived everything. And as Archana said there is no you know they don’t have bitterness about it. So I think that is the more most interesting and those who have seen it they appreciating these people. And I think that is the most exciting part about the series.