Actor Hemwant Tiwari has recently been in the news as his directorial debut, Lomad, a one-and-half hour black and white film won its 24^th selection and 11^th award. And the most recent one being, The Best Actor in a Leading Role category and Best Director category at the Accolade Global Film Festival, California, US, running for the 17^th year.  However, the day the Indian born, international actor made the announcement on his social media handles, Hemwant got the shock of his life when one of his friends told him that Lomad was pirated and was available in full-length on YouTube.

When contacted, Hemwant said, “I was shocked!” He checked out the film online and realised they had used only a poster and not the film. “It was a moment where I felt multitudes of contrasting emotions at the same time. In a day’s time, when I went back to check the link to connect to cybercrime, I saw that it was deleted. My friends on social media reported the channel and with multiple reporting it got deleted.”

Lomad, a film in a single continuous shot, with no camera-cuts, no editing, is a survival-themed crime thriller wherein Hemwant gave an opportunity to FTII graduates in the project. And the moment he mentioned the experimental genre of the film, people were excited to come on board! Hemwant rehearsed with the team for almost 10 days on location. But on the final day, he had to reshoot the film all over again after 88 minutes. “In the first take, the card finished at the 88th minute, and they had forgotten to change the card.” Undaunted, Hemwant shot the film one more time.

Hemwant Tiwari is known for his short film Life Is Beautiful that featured in Cannes, post which he made his global debut with the international Sci-fi series, Medinah. Hemwant will now be travelling to Iran and Israel for Lomad next, besides having an international series with global cast and two Indie films lined up for 2021 shoot and release. Here’s wishing him all the luck!

———–Naarad PR and Image Strategists