'X Men' take on producer Manish Mundra

Shiladitya Bora, CEO, Drishyam Films, (middle)Sudhish Kamath, director and Manish Mundra, promoter, Drishyam Films

The collaborative feature film, X: Past Is Present, with 11 directors on board, has been billed as a singularly unique experiment in filmmaking. However, it has now run into troubled waters.

A still from X: Past Is Present, a collaborative feature film by 11 critics-turned-filmmakers

The filmmakers - Abhinav Shiv Tiwari, Anu Menon, Nalan Kumarasamy, Hemant Gaba, Pratim D Gupta, Q, Raja Sen, Rajshree Ojha, Sandeep Mohan, Sudhish Kamath and Suparn Verma - claim they are still awaiting their dues from producer Manish Mundra of Drishyam Films. The banner's projects include the recent award-winning Punjabi film Chauthi Koot as well as Neeraj Ghaywan's Masaan (2015).

Shiladitya Bora, CEO, Drishyam Films, (middle)Sudhish Kamath, director and Manish Mundra, promoter, Drishyam Films

Kamath argued, "It is a betrayal on many levels. We have given them adequate time. We were operating on good faith, but realised that they [the producers] are not making any efforts to sell the film or censor it for TV. They just wanted to get rid of it.

We are all co-producers and we were experimenting with a different kind of cinema being made by people from different parts of the country. I recently mailed Manish Mundra saying that it's
okay not to pay me, but he should at least pay the others. To which he replied, ‘You are a real pain in the a'''!' After that he disappeared. What is so shameless when directors and writers ask for money? The master and slave mentality of the producers need to change."

However, Shiladitya Bora, CEO, Drishyam Films, argued, "Kamath had signed a contract with us which clearly states everything. All the allegations are baseless. We are planning legal action. We have provided the contracts to our lawyers. They are working on it and we will get a clearer picture next week. We do not want to comment about the tweets because then there will be no end [to this mud-slinging].

We have done more than what was needed; there was no default. We can provide all documents."

Earlier this week, Kamath took to Twitter to vent ire over the non-payment of fee. He posted a series of telling tweets which read: "Drishyam Films has infringed upon the copyright of the original authors & does not have the authorisation from us to distribute the film. All channels and networks distributing XPast isPresent are infringing upon the copyright of 11 writer directors who haven't yet been paid. We did put in money as coproducers but the terms kept changing because Mr Manish Mundra wanted solo producer credit."

Rajat Kapoor, Anshuman Jha, Radhika Apte and Swara Bhaskar feature in the film.