Srinivas Annamraju: Chingum is made without my consent

A poster of the film

Writer Srinivas Annamraju has filed a copyright infringement case against writer-director Mihir Fadnavis, former development head of the now-defunct Phantom Films, over the latter's upcoming movie, Chingum. As stated in his suit to the Bombay High Court, Annamraju has alleged that the story, written by him along with Fadnavis, has been developed into a feature film without his permission.

"My objection lies in the fact that Chingum was made without my consent. Unless JK Rowling consents, can [Harry Potter and the] Prisoner of Azkaban be made into a movie?" asks Annamraju, alleging that this isn't the first time Fadnavis has played foul with him.

Srinivas Annamraju and Mihir Fadnavis

According to his account, the duo had first met in 2015 for a project that was to mark the collaboration of Blumhouse Productions and Phantom Films. Among the many ideas discussed in the following years, Kalkut was lapped up by Phantom Films and hairstylist-producer Sapna Bhavnani in 2018. However, in 2019, the official announcement of Kalkut bore only Fadnavis's name as the writer. "Kalkut's press release was my first wake-up call. [I realised] Mihir had misled me into trusting him. I got confirmation [from some collaborators] in November-December 2019 that my name had been secretly removed from the documents."

Annamraju claims Fadnavis introduced him as a co-writer to producers in June 2019 only after he confronted the latter. Soon, Bhavnani exited from the project in December 2019, citing Fadnavis's unethical conduct as the reason. This led to the project being shelved. Bhavnani corroborated the chain of events to mid-day.

In the interim, Annamraju alleges that he realised that Fadnavis had edited his name from several documents and "put his own name before sending them to eminent studios all over the world."

Another bone of contention was Chingum. Annamraju says that he was told of the project's development only four days before it was to roll in November 2019. He apparently approached producer Vikramaditya Motwane in December 2019, who, after hearing his account, promised to dissociate himself from Fadnavis and inform other collaborators. Since then, Annamraju was under the impression that the film was put on the backburner until he saw, earlier this month, that the project was headed to the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal. It has been selected at BiFan Festival South Korea.

While he has been credited as one of the writers, neither has he received remuneration for the project, nor was he kept in the loop. "We've filed a lawsuit in the Bombay High Court, and I pray for justice from the Honourable Judge."

mid-day reached out to Fadnavis, who declined to comment on the story.