Sameer Sadhwani, Kishore Sadhwani and Pankaj Chaturvedi

DNA (February 22, 2019)

With Sameer and Kishore Sadhwani, the makers of the short film Laddoo, giving credit to original writer Pankaj Chaturvedi, the controversy around it has come to an end. The two makers have stated that they met Pankaj in 2013 when he had shared the script of the story with them. They recently made the film and released it on January 31. Due to the time gap and lack of communication between Kishore-Sameer and Pankaj, the original credits were unintentionally missed. When brought to notice, Friday Filmworks acknowledged this and immediately asked the filmmakers to credit Pankaj as the original writer. Ladoo revolves around the topic of religion, focusing more on similarities between Allah & God, in an effective manner.

The director duo said, “It’s a clear case of negligence on our part. We met Pankaj in 2013 when we heard the script from him and loved it but never had a chance to meet him after that. Recently, we revisited the idea and thought of making it. Due to the huge gap, unfortunately, we did not realise that we should have kept Pankaj in the loop while developing the same. We are more than happy to give Pankaj his credit and we are absolutely sorry that we unknowingly skipped his name from the credit list as the original writer. We would also like to apologise to Friday Filmworks as they were unnecessarily dragged into the controversy and thank them for all the support.”

Devendra Deshpande, Business Head of Friday Filmworks, shared his views saying, “We, as a content company take pride in giving credit where it is due. As soon as we realised that some mishap has happened, we went to the root of it to get it rectified. The writer is an extremely talented person and deserves all credits”.

Pankaj, who appreciates the acknowledgement, said, “I am really happy that Friday Filmworks got into it immediately and rectified it. It’s embarrassing for the matter to get into an ugly space. Never intended to do the same.”

Ajay Dhama, who claims that a film presented by Neeraj Pandey is a copy of his 2016 short’s trailer, sends legal notice; the latter’s producer asks him to ‘share his film and script’
Avinash Lohana (MUMBAI MIRROR; February 1, 2019)

On Wednesday, Laddoo, a short film featuring Kumud Mishra, Manasi Parekh and Kabir Sajid, released online. Presented by Neeraj Pandey and produced by Shital Bhatia, it revolves around an inquisitive little boy who sets out to feed a pandit on the occasion of his grandfather’s death anniversary. After seeing the trailer, filmmaker Ajay Dhama reached out to Mirror alleging that the makers had stolen the idea from his film In The Name of God.

“Someone sent me a link of Laddoo’s trailer on Wednesday and after seeing the entire short, I was shocked because it’s a direct lift from my film’s trailer which I uploaded online in 2016. More than 150 people on Facebook, including a few actors and technicians had shared it back then,” informs Ajay, pointing out that even the name of the young protagonist in the new short is the same, Rahul.

The filmmaker goes on to narrate how in his film, on his way to feed a pandit, Rahul bumps into a beggar and tells him that he is headed to a temple. Confused between a temple and a masjid, the boy enters the latter and offers the food to a moulavi, calling him ‘panditji’. “Sitaram Panchal who died a year-and-a-half ago, played the moulavi. The idea of the film was to erase communal differences and convey that all religions are one. They have copied my film, from names to the theme to even some of the dialogues,” adds an aggrieved Ajay, saying that his lawyer Akshey Parakh has already sent a notice to the makers of Laddoo for ‘violating trademark, copyright and patent act’.

Ajay has yet to release his film and when questioned on it, he shrugs, “I’m the producer and director and I’m in no hurry to release it.”

Mirror reached out to both Neeraj and Shital. The producer sent across a text message, stating, “We have reached out to Mr Ajay Dhama and asked him to show his film and script. Obviously, we had absolutely no clue about his film. Laddoo, which is written and directed by Sameer and Kishor Sadhwani, is presented by us to encourage and promote first-time filmmakers. They came to us with this concept and story which was supported by us. As responsible storytellers we take such claims very seriously and would appreciate it if people refrained from jumping to conclusions.”