Director Shirish Kunder has dismissed allegations that his short film Kriti is a copy of a Nepali short.
A Facebook post by Aneel Neupane, who claims to be a filmmaker from Nepal, said that Kunder “practically stole the plot” of his film titled Bob for the psychological thriller.
The post read: “I’m angry not because Mr Shirish Kunder practically stole the plot and made it into his film. I’m angry because we didn’t even have lunch money while shooting Bob, and a spot boy for Kriti probably made more money than Bob’s entire budget.
“My team and I didn’t work our [expletive] off just so some rich dude from India could turn it into this and get away with it. That’s just not fair.”
After the claims started spreading on social media, Kunder took to Twitter to settle the matter.
“To those comparing Kriti with some short film released on May 12, 2016. Kriti was shot in February, 2016. Hope this settles the matter,” Kunder tweeted.
Neupane alleges that his film was ready in October 2015 and he uploaded it on Vimeo “as a private video to share it with close friends” before releasing it on YouTube on May 12, this year.
Addressing this allegation, Kunder said: “About their claims of a private Vimeo link shared with close friends on October 2015. I’m not even their friend. Let alone close friend.”
In Kriti, Manoj Bajpayee is seen as a character with a psychological disorder. The film also features Radhika Apte and Neha Sharma. The film is for the online platform muvizz.com but has also been uploaded on YouTube.
Kriti, which runs for 18 minutes, was released online on June 22.
