Rakeysh Mehra ropes in Polish cameraman Pawel Dyllus for Mirzya

Dec 22 2015 10:00pm

It's an honour that most filmmakers from all over the world only dream about. Polish cinematographer Pawel Michal Dyllus known to never step out of his home zone has shot Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's new film Mirzya.

In his habitually self-deprecating manner Rakeysh says it didn't require much persuasion to get Dyllus on board. However it is a known fact that Dyllus has never shot a non-polish film.

In Mirzya, Dyllus has shot Rajasthan like never before.

Says Mehra, "Why do we only think of the desert when we think of Rajasthan? The Rajasthan that I want to explore is the very modern touristic hub. That is the Rajasthan I am looking it, and not the deserts, the ghagras and the Sarangi. It's set in the heart of Rajasthan. It's set in modern times, 2015 India. The legend of Mirza - Sahibaan echoes across the centuries. That's how it plays out. Once I was certain of the time zone I decided on where I wanted the legend to be located. We decided on Rajasthan."end

Popular TV series director Akshayaditya Lama accuses Ashutosh Gowariker of plagiarism

Dec 16 2015 5:34pm

After Hrithik Roshan's film to be directed by Sanjay Gupta was caught in a controversy over plagiarism, now yet another film of his has faced a similar fate. Ashutosh Gowariker's ambitious project Mohenjo-Daro faces plagiarism troubles as TV serial director Akshayaditya Lama claims that he is the original writer of it. 

Akshayaditya Lama, who has directed some popular shows like 'Kumkum' and 'Kkusum', has issued a legal notice to UTV-Disney, Ashutosh Gowariker and Hrithik Roshan seeking a stay on the film as he has alleged that Ashutosh has stolen his script. According to Lama, during the period 2002-2003, whilst he was working as an assistant director for Gadar: Ek Prem Katha, he had sent Ashutosh his script on a film that was based in the Mohenjo-Daro era through his friend and editor Ballu (Jaswinder) Saluja. However, in a span of a couple of days, Lama received the script back from Ashutosh and his team and Lama claimed that he had returned the script because Ashutosh was not interested in making a period drama immediately after Lagaan. Akshayaditya also stated that he had registered the same script under the Copyrights Act with Ministry of HRD (Human Resources Development) in 2007 with the title 'Samrajya' which was later re-registered as 'Mohenjo-Daro' by him in February 2010. He also added that two days later, Ashutosh Gowariker too registered the same name with a similar script. After several enquires, when Lama apparently was sure that Mohenjo-Daro has a rather similar plotline to his film, he decided to approach the filmmaker and even tried to contact him through mails but did not receive any response on the same. 

While Ashutosh Gowariker has not responded to these accusations publicly, the legal team of the director-producer deny these allegations and have maintained that the script was returned to Lama without Ashutosh even looking or reading it and also clarified that the claims made by Akshayaditya over not making a period drama are false too. end