News of Newton being supposedly plagiarised from the Iranian film of 2001, Secret Ballot, sent disappointment through industry circles. Even as some snickered over our industry’s old penchant for blithely lifting stories from foreign cinema, others wondered whether this controversy would negatively impact the film’s chances at the Oscar’s. Newton director Amit V Masurkar himself isn’t backing down and has strongly refuted the allegations. “It would be best if people watch both films before deciding or writing an article. We hadn’t even heard of Secret Ballot when we were writing the script. Newton is very rooted. If it was a copy, do you think Berlin, Tribeca would have programmed it? The other film has also won international awards. Newton is not a copy of any other film, it isn’t even inspired,” he maintains.
We are loving the way Anurag Kashyap has also risen in defence of Newton. In a series of tweets, he has come out all guns blazing in his praise of this political satire. He has expressed his ‘super happiness’ at a ‘deserving’ film being selected as India’s submission to the Academy awards, which will start screening foreign language films from October. What’s more, he has also addressed the rumours of it being allegedly inspired by Secret Ballot. “Newton is as much a copy of Secret Ballot as The Avengers is of Watan Ke Rakhwale.” Don’t you just love the way he put that?!
He also points out that the Amit V Masurkar directorial is a very worthy film, having already won an award at the Berlin Film Festival; namely the International Federation of Art Cinemas (CICAE) award in its section.
“Newton is an award winner from Berlin Fest and I can promise you those curators watch more films in a year than rest of us do in a lifetime,” Kashyap vouched.
With the film growing a whopping 162% at the box office between Friday and Saturday last week, it has already created Rs.3.48 crore in two days of its release.
Plagiarism rumours be damned; the public love it and that’s what matters at the battered box office in these times of gigantic flops.
