Onir is an Indian filmmaker and one of only a few openly gay Bollywood directors. In a recent tweet, he said he was “taken aback” after noticing some striking similarities between his critically-acclaimed 2011 film I AM and scenes from Amazon’s 2019 wedding series Made In Heaven.
On Monday, the 51-year-old director responded to a tweet from someone who tagged him in a video comparing the two projects. Both feature the same actor, Arjun Mathur, in intimate gay scenes.
“I was quite taken aback when I saw that so much of that section of I AM was not only there as content but shot exactly in the same way,” Onir wrote. “But acknowledgement has never been the strength of this industry.”
I was quite taken aback when I saw that so much of that section of I AM was not only there as content but shot exactly in the same way. But acknowledgement has never been the strength of this industry. https://t.co/ip2rzMQgC8
— Onir (@IamOnir) July 27, 2020
He followed that up with a second tweet, writing: “I am being told that it’s just the incident and many such incidents happen and there were no actual similarities in the way it was executed.”
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I am being told that it’s just the incident and many such incidents happen and there were no actual similarities in the way it was executed https://t.co/LbNFI9JQs0
— Onir (@IamOnir) July 28, 2020
And a third one that said, “Apparently it’s in my imagination that it’s so similar and in the episode it’s just an incident that is same and has no resemblance to the way it is in I AM !!!”
Apparently it’s in my imagination that it’s so similar and in the episode it’s just an incident that is same and has no resemblance to the way it is in I AM !!! https://t.co/iM0Yd85r3I
— Onir (@IamOnir) July 28, 2020
I AM was released in 2011, at a time when homosexuality was still punishable with life in prison in India. It consisted of four short films, each confronting a different social issue, and tackled themes of homosexuality years before any other Hindi films were doing so. It won two National Awards, one for Best Hindi Film and the other for Best Lyrics.
Made In Heaven was released by Amazon in March 2019 and chronicles the lives two wedding planners running an agency in Delhi. After receiving largely positive reviews, the series was picked up for a second season in April 2019.
Both projects feature the same actor, Arjun Mathur, in a gay role. Mathur is straight and later said that playing a gay man has resulted in guys sliding into his DMs unexpectedly.
Related: Since doing gay for pay, actor says guys won’t stop slipping into his DMs, but that’s OK
In an additional post about the issue on Instagram, Omir writes: “It was disheartening that what I had done 8 years before was being cheered and celebrated as path breaking, conveniently forgetting that it was done years ago through crowd funding without any platform/studio support.”
He added, “As a member of the lgbtqi community maybe I was supposed to feel grateful and stay silent. One can have the same theme , but this was even shot exactly the same way….. coincidence indeed!!!”
Watch the side-by-side comparison of I AM and Made In Heaven. What do you think about the similarities? Sound off in the comments section below.
jayceecook
“…and tackled themes of homosexuality years before any other Hindi films were doing so.”
Sorry GG but that’s absolutely not true. Deepa Mehta’s “Fire” from 1996 was one of the first Hindi films to feature homosexuality and also the first to feature a lesbian relationship. Upon it’s release it caused the Shiv Sanaiks to riot movie theaters. Some were vandalized and others set on fire. The irony on the last bit isn’t lost on me. The film was pulled from other theaters and submitted to India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcast for editing. Eventually it was rereleased to more even more rioting by the Bharatiya Janata Party. It took until 1999 for theaters in India to screen it without protests and riots.
Do better research GG.
Topazme
And remember 2004’s Girlfriend….2000s was the age of erotic thrillers in Bollywood and that movie portrayed a lesbian character obsessed with her best friend….that movie too was vandalised by the morality police and burned down theatres and pulled from cinemas….but the irony is that people were fine with stereotypical gay characters in bollywood who were there for jokes and often were made creepy sexual perverts…and transgender characters but when you showed lesbians everyone was there with pitchfoerks and fires….i guess it was homophobia compounded with patriarchy….men could do what they want,…even gay men and transgenders were let to live but women who dared to go against the customs faced so much difficulty
JamJewel
One would think that the person who would really know is the actor but once again, Queerty fails basic Journalism 101 but not even asking him!
Kangol2
Given the striking similarities Mr. Onir probably has a winnable lawsuit in the offing.
jayceecook
No he doesn’t. Filming a scene the exact same way in a movie as it is filmed in another one does not violate any copyright laws. Even if it were possible there is the whole transformative art angle that could be used.