Tu Laut Aa Director Sam Dawjee Breaks His Silence On Social Media Clash Between Pratik & Kashika (Exclusive)

'Tu Laut Aa' music video director Sam Dawjee has broken his silence on the social media clash between actors Pratik Sehajpal and Kashika Kapoor in a conversation with Filmibeat.

The latter has accused the former of chopping her scenes and how her lawyer has taken to Twitter, indicating his intent to take legal action against Pratik and his social media team for running an illegal and abusive campaign to vilify a lady.

Sam who is also a cinematographer, editor, colourist as per his LinkedIn profile, says, "I usually don't get into controversies, preferring to stick to my music and positivity. Still, here I am, forced to speak out, for Kashika has spoken about personal matters of our producer, Vandana Khandelwal, who moved heaven and earth to get the music video out on her social media stories. She also abused Vandana ji who was a hands on producer."

Sam goes on, "Kashika's biggest grouse is that she wanted to look beautiful throughout the video. However, as director, I am duty-bound to stay true to the concept of our story, which is a relationship between an alcoholic guy and his girl."

"There were many scenes where she looked gorgeous, including in the poster, but she kept saying she was not looking good," he added.

"I sat at all edits, for it was essential to bring my vision to the final cut as I had shot the entire video with a particular thought process," explained Sam.

Sam said, "We all tried our best to make Kashika see reason, but she was adamant and insisted on getting her way (cut) even after the final version was despatched for the premiere. She needs to understand that give and take are expected in a creative process, and no one is right or wrong. She also fails to get that the overall story arc matters more for an actor than just appearing pretty on the screen."

What hurt this veteran of 50 odd music videos is that Kashika called the entire fiasco a PR stunt. He said, "This was demeaning the efforts of all concerned lyrics, including lyrics writer Sanjeev Chaturvedi and singers Yasser Desai & Prakriti Kakar)."

Sam was full of praise for Pratik, calling him a "professional" who willingly agreed to work beyond his shift, knowing that he had to return to Mumbai immediately after our shoot in Alibaug. He also had long discussions with me to get into the mindset of his boozard character. Sam also stressed that Pratik was in no way responsible for any cut.

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He said, "Kashika is also a sweet, beautiful gal, but sadly, sometimes things do go wary. Their combined social presence was so big that the controversy ended up spiralling out of control. We all worked very hard to finish the shoot and edit, which went into the wee hours of the morning."