# Love & Love Only

Love & Love Only is a 2015 Australian film directed by Indian-born Australian filmmaker Julian Karikalan starring Rohit Kalia, who was Mr. India Australia in 2014 and Georgia Nicholas in lead roles.
A cross-cultural romantic film where an Indian falls in love with an Australian girl features background score and songs by India's legendary composer Ilaiyaraaja. This is the first-ever English-language feature film for which he has composed original songs.
The film was launched for online audience on 22 November 2016 and is available on YouTube in countries that allow paid content, while for the rest of the world, the movie is available on Vimeo on demand and VHX.

## Summary

Krishna "Kris" is forcefully sent to Australia by his parents to learn business and life, but he struggles to adapt to Australian ways as he was always pampered by his mom. In Australia, he falls in love with Stacey, his co-worker, a school dropout from a broken family. Krishna's struggle with cultural differences create problems in their relationship.

## Cast and crew
### Cast

* Rohit Kalia as Kris
* Georgia Nicholas as Stacey
* Sekhar Mehta as Arvind
* Ambika Asthana as Kannika
* Murthy Vaitheeswaran as Raghu
* Robert Osborne as George
* Ben Cork as Lecturer James
* Shashidhar Dandekar as Rajan
* Suparna Malik as Chitra
* Anton Manojkumar as Joe
* Laurence Nath as Kumar
* Anamika Dhawan as Deepa

### Crew

* Sound Design – Brent Heber

## Production
### Development

The film's title is based off of the book Love and Love Only, which features in Kadhalukku Mariyadhai (1997), a film that also featured music by Ilaiyaraaja.

### Music

Contrary to regular industry practice, the composer of the film came aboard only after the whole film was edited and ready for a preliminary viewing. Once the film was complete, Julian Karikalan made a trip to India to meet Ilaiyaraaja, who consented to support the project, despite its budgetary constraints.
Being an English film, the composer Ilaiyaraaja was keen in getting native western voices. After advertising online in Australia, Rachael Leahcar, the South Australian singer was chosen to render her voice for the first ever song composed by Ilaiyaraaja for an English film. The background tracks were recorded in Prasad Studios, Chennai and the voice was recorded and mixed in Australia.
The entire background score was completed within 6 days including recording and technical post-production.

### Filming

The film was shot in the Sydney metropolitan area. The film was also shot at the University of Wollongong.

## Music

The music was composed by Ilaiyaraaja, which features 21 songs. The lyrics are written by Julian Karikalan and Denny Burgess. Ramya NSK also features as a playback singer for the album.

## Accolades

| Award | Date of ceremony | Category | Recipient(s) | Result | Ref. |
| International Film and Entertainment Festival of Australia | December 2014 | Best Musical Score | Ilaiyaraaja | Won | |
| International Film and Entertainment Festival of Australia | December 2014 | Best Direction | Julian Karikalan | Won | |

## Reception

Amreen Godhrawala of aka The Versatile wrote, "The locations are beautiful and simple, the music and background score are spot on and the story unravels the true struggles of an Indian who studies abroad unlike the easy life which our movies usually depict".