Even as Bollywood gets increasingly corpora-tised, we continue to hear stories of someone being shortchanged. More often than not, it’s the writer. The latest, in this case, is Manoj Mairta, who says Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra is not giving him his rightful credit in the upcoming film, Mere Pyaare Prime Minister. The writer also sent a legal notice to the filmmaker. He says that since he hasn’t received any response in the stipulated 15 days, he will pursue the matter in court.
Manoj tells us that he had registered the script in 2014 before he contacted Rakeysh. Eventually, they entered into an agreement in April 2015. It was only a while after Mirzya released in 2016, that he began working on Mere Pyaare Prime Minister. The movie revolves around an eight-year-old boy (played by Om Kanojiya) living in a Mumbai slum who wants to build a toilet for his mother (played by Anjali Patil).
However, after the film’s completion when its first look was unveiled in 2017, Manoj learnt that he was not getting the credit as promised. When his repeated requests failed to get an appropriate response, he approached the Screen Writers Association (SWA) in October 2017. When both, Manoj’s and Rakeysh’s scripts were evaluated, the Dispute Settlement Committee (DSC) observed that the latter’s was ‘merely a rewritten and polished’ version of the writer’s work.
After evaluating their scripts and agreement, the DSC noted that the writer should be given a solo credit for the story and first credit for the screenplay and dialogues, while the filmmaker should be given the second credit for the screenplay and dialogues and no credit for the story.
Manoj maintains that in the communication of the film, whether the first poster or the news of the movie being selected for the upcoming Rome International Film Festival, his name is being left out even as those of others working on the project are being mentioned.
When contacted, Mehra replied via a text message, “He (Manoj) has made a default representation at SWA. There is another writer in question, Hussain Dalal, whose rights we need to protect. So, the matter will come up for discussion and all will be resolved soon. If you look at our IMDB post, he (Manoj) is very much there as the writer.”
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