Acclaimed filmmakers who were dragged into plagiarism controversy

There’s a common saying that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery but often filmmakers took the adage too seriously. A plotline here, a character there and a song somewhere else — many films have been dragged into controversy for allegedly copying scripts, concepts, music and even posters from various sources, all in the name of ‘inspiration’. Take a look at these 5 instances when renowned filmmakers had to face plagiarism allegations.

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The story of Mainak Bhaumik's web series ‘Boys’ was eerily similar to the script of actor Soumyajit Majumdar’s maiden directorial ‘Ebhabei Phirey Asha Jaaye’. Interestingly, both Soumyajit and Mainak have been close friends for years and have also worked together in six films. The incident came into broad daylight in 2019 when Soumyajit received an offer for a key role in ‘Boys’. As soon as he went through the script sent to him, he realized it has an uncanny similarity with the script he shared with Mainak once. Mainak, however, admitted it’s surprisingly coincidental. When things escalated Mainak shelved the project and said it was due to some issues with the casting of the series and also insisted it had nothing to do with the similarities and the controversy. This was not the first time Mainak has been dragged into plagiarism row. He was earlier accused of allegedly copying his own film ‘Ami vs Tumi’ for ‘Bibaho Diaries’.

Anindo Banerjee directed ‘Chaplin’ in 2011. When the film released, it had garnered a lot of praise for its unique storyline. Padmanabha Dasgupta was particularly appreciated for writing a screenplay based on an original story. And then, author Sourav Mukhopadhyay claimed that Padmanabha copied the plot of the film from his story titled ‘Charandas Chaplin’ which was published in a Bengali children’s magazine on July 5, 2009. The coincidences included how a character takes up the job of dressing up as a Chaplin performer to ward off poverty, the life-threatening illness of his son and how the father celebrates the son’s birthday. However, Padmanabha had insisted that he had penned the script in 2007.

In 2011 when Srijit Mukherji released his 2011 thriller ‘Baishe Srabon’ director Pratim Dasgupta had alleged that the script has an uncanny similarity with one of his scripts. The plagiarism allegation had shocked everyone in Tollywood. However, later Pratim had given a clean chit to Srijit in the ‘Baishe Srabon’ plagiarism row but also claimed that he gets asked many times why does his script gets nicked every time because he has chosen to speak up.

While Kaushik Ganguly announced that the idea of his film ‘Jyeshthoputro’ struck him when watching Rituparno Ghosh closely during his father’s death, filmmaker Pratim Gupta claimed that the story was jointly conceived and written by him and Ghosh. Ganguly had also said that Rituparno Ghosh had himself developed the story and handed it to him. Pratim claimed that ‘Jyeshthoputro’ is based on ‘Onyo Nayak’, written by him and Rituparno Ghosh. He reportedly heard that Kaushik was making a film on Ghosh’s concept but didn’t know that it was based on 'Onyo Nayak'.

A renowned journalist was questioned by Kolkata Police in 2018 for tweeting that Dev starrer ‘Hoichoi Unlimited’ was copied from a Pakistani film. It all started after the teaser of the film, directed by Aniket Chattopadhyay, was released. ‘Jawaani Phir Nahi Ani’, directed by Nadeem Baig, happens to be the third-highest-grossing Pakistani film ever. It’s the story of a divorce lawyer taking his three married friends to a trip in Bangkok to help them escape their wives. After watching the teaser many alleged that some of the sequences have similarity with the Pakistani film. However, the ‘Hoichoi Unlimited’ team had quashed all the rumours.