Sammir I. Patel All Set To Bring Love From Canada

Jyothi Venkatesh

Writer-director Sammir .I. Patel is all set to spring a pleasant surprise on one of the current prominent OTT platforms with his latest web series- an Indo-Canadian romantic love story called ‘Canada Diaries (Love Across the Order). The series will be a fast paced love story in Hindi and will comprise Indian and Canadian artists. The web series is to be produced by Amrit Brar’s Bombay House Production and Canada and Sip production Mumbai, says Sammir.I. Patel in this exclusive telephon ic interview with JYOTHI VENKATESH for bollyy.com and Mayapuri.

Sammir. I. Patel has produced many web series, short films, ad films and feature films, which include Jhappi Jet, Yours Truly Ruhani, PFA Love Mom & Dad and Hotel Bueautifool, which in turn was actually based on his own earlier play Baat Baat Mein Bigdey Halaat. The new series, which is in pre production stage as of now, features actors par excellence like Brijendra Kala, Navneet Nishant, Yusuf Hussain, Rakesh Srivastav and some Canadian artists. The lead pair will be a new boy and a new young girl. The series, says Sammir, will be launched by December when he is confident that International flights will start, with a 30 days schedule and make eight episodes, each of duration of 40 minutes.

Exults Sammir I Patel, “’Canada Diaries (Love across the Order) is a romantic comedy, and has the backdrop of a restaurant as its premise. It is a situational comedy and not at all a slapstick comedy. And "Love across the Order" is the tagline of my new web series. While I am seriously toying with the idea of casting a big star in the role of the owner of the restaurant in my web series, two new faces are being introduced in the lead characters in the series”.

Sammir adds, “It is a fast paced love story with lots of wit and humor, which all the patrons will certainly enjoy. I am also looking forward to casting some more new faces in my web series. I am looking forward to make something different and interesting for the OTT platform. The shooting of this series will start soon and be completed in Canada and India by the end of this year”.

Sammir has also written and directed a short film called PFA Love Mom and Dad about a father and his son and their emotional relationship and he is looking at having talks to stream it on an OTT shortly. Though Sammir had written and directed his film Hotel Beautifool, which was produced by someone else, he will not only write and direct this new series but also produce it. “Canada Diaries' (Love Across the Order) will drive home the poignant message that we tend to miss out the humane side by not valuing people and their yeoman contribution to society at large and not appreciating people who are an intrinsic part of all our lives”.

The film Hotel Beautifool starred Johny Lever along with some TV stars and was also well received when it was released. “If Hotel Beautifool revolved around the premise of a hotel, ‘Canada Diaries (Love across the order) will deal with the premise of a restaurant. I have also dealt with the premise of airlines earlier in one of my series too. Though I was associated with TV serials Yeh Chandha Kanoon and Bhabhiji Ghar Par Hai earlier, I confess candidly that I do not at all find it exciting to direct TV serials as I feel that it is a very monotonous task.

Though Sammir’s favorite actors today are Aamir Khan, Ayushmann Khurrana and Rajkummar Rao, he confesses that it is the content which is actually the king rather than the stars, and says that he believes in the quality of Cinema so that he can churn out qualitatively better films and adds that he is an all time follower of the kind of films that the late filmmaker Hrishikesh Mukherjee used to make at one time. Sammir admits that he has been inspired tremendously by him. Yet another favorite of his is none other than Rajkumar Hirani.

Interestingly, Sammir likes to give a break to newcomers instead of chasing the stars though he is not averse to casting the stars in his films as well as web series, if they suit the parts in them. “I cast Jia Sharma in my film Hotel Beautifool even before she was spotted and cast in Arjun Reddy, the Telugu original version of the Hindi hit remake Kabir Singh. Jia had played the second lead in the Telugu film and is today a sought after star in Telugu Cinema”, says Sammir Patel.

Talking about the current pandemic which has forced people to sit at home and watch OTT platforms, he feels that there are both plus as well as minus points as far as OTT platforms are concerned. “Though I’d love to go to multiplexes and watch films armed with packet after packet of popcorn, I am equally confident that very soon within the next five years, a day will dawn when the OTT platforms too will start embracing new technologies and watching a film on OTT at home will also prove to be equally satisfying, besides watching a film in the big cinema houses.”