Chennai: The plagiarism issue of Vijay Sethupathi-starrer 96 has reached a new height as assistant director Suresh on Monday established a lot of old collections and e-mails that he had sent to himself for his aspiring movie ‘Palpandi engira Bharathi’ aka ‘Nee Naan Mazhai Ilayaraja’.
Ever since 96 hit screens, the movie has been stuck in plagiarism complaint as Suresh claimed that the film’s director Premkumar stole the story from him through filmmaker Marudupandian of Asuravadham fame who was also a part of 96’s story discussion. Suresh is an assistant to yesteryear veteran Bharathiraja who was all set to make the story into a film. However, there was a delay in the project as the Karuthamma director went on to make another film ‘Om’.
In the meantime, it is said that Suresh has discussed his story with Marudupandian. When 96 was released last month, it was shocking for Bharathiraja that a lot of scenes were resembling totally with the script Suresh made in the name of Palpandi engira Bharathi. Following this, he approached the production house of 96, Madras Enterprises, who is said to have denied commenting.
On Monday, Suresh came out to media with his research collections and pre-production documents. He showed the screenshots of over 50 emails that he sent during the year 2014. “I have around 2,000 emails, each detailing about the requisites and scenes of my story. I have mentioned in a mail about using Yamunai Aatrile from Thalapathy, Kannan Vandhu Paadugindraan and another song from Avadharam. These are the similarities that are obvious between both the scripts.”
Suresh also pointed to a character Charumathi from 96. The character does not appear in the movie but, the film’s protagonist refers to her when he tells about a girl in his life during his college days. “I have sent a mail regarding this Charumathi and her characterisation as well.’ Along with that, Suresh showed a lot of location photos he wanted to make his movie along with some storyboard pictures.
| Bharathiraja had sent a letter to the Tamil Film Producers Council, demanding an action against the makers of 96. In the letter, he has mentioned that “These act of plagiarism are not just leading to mental stress or anxiety, but has to be ended. So I request the TFPC to take a strict action against this and should look into that such incidents do not happen in the future.” |