Filmmaker Chhatrapal Ninawe has accused Jio Studios, which produced his debut film Ghaath (2022), of sabotaging its release and even preventing its screening at the Berlin film festival despite being selected. The film is co-produced by Drishyam Films.
Ninawe shared his side of the story in a long social media post last week. He accused Jio Studios of not being willing to release his film and also not letting Drishyam Films buy it out. He said he had kept mum on the matter for 15 months.
An excerpt from his post read: 'Jio Studios sent a legal restraining order to Berlinale, effectively asking them to drop the film from the selection. We sent frantic emails. No explanations were given. Drishyam Films even offered to buy back the film completely. Jio Studios instead sent a legal notice and banned them from applying to any other film festival. A Berlin curator told me that such a thing has not happened in her career spanning 28 years.'
When contacted and asked about his next step, Ninawe said, “Honestly, this post happened in an emotional state. I will at least put up a fight, because I think injustice has happened with my film. So as of now, we are protesting on social media. If I can reach somebody from the information and broadcasting ministry and solve this matter quickly, then I will try to do that. Because, frankly, Jio Studios can afford the best legal minds in the country [but] I don't have that privilege. I am exploring the option of charitable lawyers who can come in my support in this injustice. I am also ready to talk to influential people from the Hindi and Marathi film fraternity who can play mediators.”
Even after his post went viral, Ninawe said, he received no communication from Jio Studios. “Even after multiple attempts to contact them, I didn't get any response," he said. "I'm available to speak with them 24x7. They have my email [ID], number and every contact information. But they just don’t want to communicate with me. In fact, even now, after my post has gone viral, they haven't contacted me directly.”
He, however, said Jio Studios tried contacting him through Drishyam Films and asked him to delete the post. “They told Drishyam Films to communicate with me and tell me that things can move forward if I remove the post. But my question is why do we talk only after my post has gone viral? If I remove the post now, all those people from the film fraternity and the common cinema lovers who supported me and shared my post will feel cheated. They will think It was merely a publicity stunt to get more attention for my film.”
Ghaath is a film about tribal people and stars well-known Marathi artistes Milind Shinde and Jitendra Joshi. Ninawe said he is fine with removing any portions from the film that may be objectionable. “My film is about tribal people and I am sure there is nothing wrong in my film, but if you still find something wrong in it, I will remove it,” he told Cinestaan.com. “There are filmmakers who fight for such things, but I won’t even fight for it. But please, please release my film.”
Ninawe also said he understands that Joshi and Shinde can’t speak about the matter as they may have projects going on with Jio Studios, but he wondered why others from the Marathi fraternity are silent. But he expressed happiness at receiving support from people from Hindi cinema like Varun Grover, Vasan Bala, Amit Masurkar and Qaushik Mukherjee.
When Cinestaan.com contacted Jio Studios, a spokesperson denied Ninawe's claims and said, “Jio Studios is committed to responsible storytelling and is working with more than 50 filmmakers across 120+ multilingual stories as we speak. It is our endeavour to extend the best possible support to our partners and filmmakers to achieve the highest critical and commercial success that every story deserves. We have an ongoing legal dispute with producer Drishyam Films on a multi-film deal due to which we will abstain from making any specific media clarifications. However, we want to expressly clarify that we have no dispute with any director. We deny all baseless allegations against us.”
Responding to a query, Manish Mundra, founder of Drishyam Films, said, “We have taken legal opinion in the Ghaath matter and have been advised to refrain from commenting [as] it can form part of a breach of the confidentiality clause in the agreement between us and Jio [Studios]."