His Storyy poster plagiarism row: ALTBalaji apologizes for 'oversight'

ALTBalaji has admitted that the poster of its upcoming series His Storyy, which is also being backed by ZEE5, was lifted from that of Sudhanshu Saria’s movie Loev and has apologized, citing unawareness. 

The platform shared a note on Twitter on Saturday that read, “The uncanny resemblance and similarity cannot be written off as a mere coincidence. It has been an oversight on part of our design team. For this we apologize (sic).” 

The note added, “We respect the creativity of every designer and would never intentionally lift their work nor disregard their talent. Thus, an apology to the artists involved in the making of this poster is warranted. We have deleted the poster from all our platforms and we humbly apologise to the artists involved in the creation of the beautiful poster of Loev.” 

On Friday, when the poster of His Storyy was released on social media, Jahan Bakshi, one of the designers who had worked on the poster of Loev, which is about a same-sex relationship, called out ALTBalaji and ZEE5. 

Later that day, Saria chimed in, expressing his displeasure on Facebook. Speaking to Cinestaan about the controversy, he said, “It’s about us, as an industry, and the culture needs to change.”