Makers of advertisement featuring Deepika Padukone accused of plagiarism by director Sooni Taraporevala for her film Yeh Ballet.
Rupik Suchak, the director of the ad said that the similarities in the ad were intentionally put.
“A couple days ago someone brought this @levis_in ad to my attention,” Sooni wrote in an Instagram post on Tuesday, attaching screenshots from her film and the advertisement.
“I was shocked to see our Yeh Ballet dance studio set in this ad, because it was conceptualized & created out of a derelict space by @shalzoid (our PD) from scratch and dismantled after our shoot. Basically @nadiaeye (the director of this ad) saw Yeh Ballet and decided to plagiarize our set down to the very last detail (swipe for screenshot). Would Levi’s and the director ever think of doing that in the west without permission / acknowledgment, and passing it off as their own creative work? This is not homage this is intellectual theft! It’s SO unfair to our wonderful production designer @shalzoid to have her work ripped off like that.”
She added, “Copycat culture in India needs to be called out and cancelled. You would think a foreign production company and director would know better. Are you so creatively bankrupt? What were you thinking? @levis_in @nadiaeye @offroadfilms @rupinsuchak @newland.tv.”
The movie ‘Yeh Ballet’ was released in 2019 on Netflix. The film is based on the story of two Mumbai kids who want to dance but their family does not allow them to do so.
Deepika shared the advertisement on her Instagram last week.
The ad was appreciated by Ranveer Singh, Ayushmann Khurrana and Hrithik Roshan.
Rupin admitted that Yeh Ballet was indeed a part of the brief. “That’s exactly like the studio in the film Yeh Ballet, did you guys shoot there?” one person commented, and Rupin’s reply, according to the screenshot shared by Sooni was, “Yes we did 🙂 in fact that’s what our director wanted so we had to recreate that.”
Deepika was last seen in the movie Chhapaak and is filming for Pathan that stars Shah Rukh Khan and also has Fighter in pipeline that stars Hrithik Roshan.
