Last week, Bollywood received an honor as the recent acclaimed Hindi film, Newton starring Rajkummar Rao was selected as India's official entry to the Oscars in the Foreign language category. Newton is currently running in theaters, and apart from great appreciation, the film has also been receiving criticism from a few viewers who claimed that the movie was a rip-off from an Iranian film called Secret Ballot
Ace director Anurag Kashyap came out in support of the team as he approached the producer of Secret Ballot to send him a private link of Newton, so he could watch it and let everybody know that it is not a copy of their film. The Bombay Velvet director then took to his Facebook page to share the screenshots of his conversation with Marco Muller, the producer of Secret Ballot.
Along with the screenshots, he wrote, "With over enthusiastic media and our cinephiles with over active imagination .. who called "Newton" a copy of "Secret Ballot" ..here is what the producer of "Secret Ballot " said to me after watching Newton. I requested the link of Newton from its director and send it to Marco Muller, the producer. And he wrote back "A pretty decent film, definitely no rip off from our Secret Ballot (even if the general concept is the same )" and then I asked him if I can share his response on Social Media ? He replied ,"please feel free as you see fit, there is not even a hint of plagiarisation" .. below is the screen shot."
**The post is not spell-checked