Odd controversy halts the release of Amitabh Bachchan’s “Jhund”
We have heard of movie releases stopped on the grounds of hurting religious sentiments, promoting a culture against Indian values, defaming a certain individual, profanity, vulgarity, and even for the potential to cause public unrest, however, what is happening with “Jhund” has a very unique, controversial and complicated reason.
The Nagraj Manjule directed movie has run into controversies more than once but the current (bizzarre) copyright case beats them all. Read On.
The “Jhund” Movie Story
The story of the movie “Jhund” is based on the life of football coach Vijay Barse who motivates the street kids to play soccer to steer them away from the path of crime. Amitabh Bachchan is playing the role of Vijay Barse a retired football coach from Nagpur who helped rehabilitate many street children.
The movie depicts the struggle and pain that Barse had to undergo to accomplish his vision for the slum children and the triumph of the team and the coach over many constraints and hurdles.
Barse is from Nagpur and therefore the movie has been shot mostly in the lanes of Nagpur so as to get the most authentic look and feel. Director Nagraj Manjule thought that the language of the film would be best showcased in Nagpur and therefore decided to shoot the movie in Nagpur with the street kids to give the movie the much-needed local flavor.
Story of Vijay Barse – The football coach
Vijay Barse used to work as a sports teacher at Hilsop College, Nagpur. Barse was living his retired life with his wife Ranjana Barse, and son, Abhijeet Barse. One day, after spotting underprivileged children playing with a makeshift football, he got so moved that he went on to start the NGO “Slum Soccer” to coach them and to make their lives better.
Later Barse collaborated with some of his college friends to organize a tournament for the slum children. The first slum soccer tournament took place in 2001 in Nagpur where 128 teams took part in the tournament. Barse was so dedicated to the cause that he used the sum of Rs. 18 Lacs received as his gratuity to build a football academy near Nagpur for the underprivileged children.
Coach Barse continued his work with the slum children and even participated in international tournaments with his talented team. The word about his work spread gradually and he was honored with the ‘Real Hero’ award by Sachin Tendulkar himself in 2014. Due to his selfless work, he also appeared in Season 3 of Amir Khan’s show “Satyamev Jayate” which threw him into the limelight and there was no turning back.
Slum Soccer has won many awards including Manthan eNGO Award 2012, FICCI India Sports Award 2013, Reliance Real Hero Award 2014, FIFA Diversity Award 2016, FICCI Gender Diversity Award 2018, Apollo Tyre Go The Distance Award 2019 and Nagbhushan Award 2019. Today “Slum Soccer” also runs a program for hearing-impaired kids.
“Jhund” release date
The shooting of the movie commenced in Dec 2018 and in February 2019, T-series, the producers of the movie, released the first look of the movie. The producers also announced 20-sep-2019 as the Jhund release date. Needless to say, no one was thinking about a pandemic at the current scale back in February 2019, so the release was postponed to 13-Dec-2019 and then on 21-Jan-2020 the new release date was announced as 8-May-2020. The release date just kept getting postponed.
The Covid-19 pandemic, however, is not the only reason behind the delay in the movie release. A recent controversy over the copyright of the story has now halted the release of the movie.
The Current Controversy
Nandi Chinni Kumar, a filmmaker from Hyderabad, has sent legal notices to the producers of Jhund, alleging copyright infringement. Kumar served notices to producer Krishan Kumar, T-series CMD Bhushan Kumar, director Nagraj Manjule, Amitabh Bachchan, Vijay Barse, and Akhilesh Paul.
Akhilesh Paul was one of the many students that Vijay Barse has coached at Slum Soccer and as per Nandi Kumar, he bought the exclusive rights of making a biopic (titled “Slum Soccer”) on Akhilesh Paul’s life in 2017 and paid Akhilesh for the same. Paul had signed a No Objection Certificate that Nandi Chinni Kumar had been given exclusive rights to make a movie based on Akhilesh’s life. He alleged that now Akhilesh has now entered into another agreement with the producers of “Jhund”. He also alleged criminal intimidation at the hands of “Jhund” producers.
Nandi Chinni Kumar first moved the Trial court where he got the stay on release of the movie in Sep 2020 and later the Telangana High Court upheld the Trial Court order in Oct 2020 even as the producers of “Jhund” denied all the allegations. Subsequently, “Jhund” producers and director Manjule filed 2 separate Special Leave Petitions in the Supreme Court to reverse the Telangana High Court order.
The appellants raised 2 key points that have the potential to change the way copyright works in India.
While Nandi Kumar contends that Manjule has made a movie on Vijay Barse’s life but a significant part of his movie “Jhund” also features Akhilesh Paul’s life story which, allegedly, is an infringement of his copyright over Paul’s life’s story, the makers of “Jhund” raised the issue of whether true life events of a real person can be considered ‘property’ which can be brought and sold, and if yes, whether the same will get copyright protection debarring anybody else from making a film depicting the said life story.
The second contention made by the appellants in the Supreme Court was that real-life events of two persons might be inter-connected. Hence, a third person who purchases the true-life events of one person cannot prohibit others from making a film merely because the lives of the two persons in question converged at some point in time.
The makers of “Jhund” also claimed that the disputing parties signed an agreement on Oct 21, 2020 for a consideration of Rs. 1.3 Crores to be paid to Nandi Kumar for withdrawing all litigation but he has sought to wiggle out of the said agreement. However, Mr. Kumar’s lawyer argued that the agreement was annulled earlier so it can’t be quoted in the current case.
Despite these contentions and a plea that the makers will lose a lot of money in 6 months, the Hon’ble Supreme Court dismissed the petitions and referred the case back to Telangana High Court.
It will be an interesting case to watch the outcome, as the copyright business in India will probably change forever if the Telangana High Court rules in favor of either party. If Nandi Kumar wins the case then no one will be able to feature any person in a movie unless they have bought the copyright of that person’s life’s story.
On the other hand, if the makers of Jhund win the case then one will be able to misuse the judgement for circumventing copyrights of other people by making a movie on a third person but showcasing the life of a person who’s sold copyrights to someone else.
Keep checking Piccle for more updates on this story and for other interesting stories.
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