MUMBAI: Art is all about love, expression, liberation and faith. But as business takes over art, mistrust and insecurities creeps in to corrupt the whole fabric of art. From plagiarism to cheated artists to unpaid assignments. Artists seem to be at the receiving end of this industialisation of art. The world of literature, films, and performing arts are filled with such examples. Most of them unknown to the world. The recent victim is writer and director, Abhijit Das. He has gone unpaid and not even credited for 2 short film stories he wrote for Viacom Motion Pictures through Mohona Films. 

In the beginning of 2017, he was approached by Ronita Mitra of Mohona Films to conceptualise short content for Viacom Motion Pictures and Tipping Point Films. He wrote a couple of stories of which 2 scripts were approved by Viacom. He spent a couple of months developing the scripts, the look and made multiple presentations for Mohona Films. It took time for the project to move ahead and he got busy with a daily soap, Dil Sambhal Jaa Zara on Star Plus. Thus he couldn’t take the stories forward with Viacom. Ronita followed up a couple of times with Abhijit and finally requested him to sign over the stories to Mohona Films. With sheer trust and humility, he signed a non-legal document and gave the rights of the stories to them. Debatma Mandal was brought in by them to direct the films. The project finally went on floor with Viacom and the films were complete by end of 2018. In the first week of February 2019 Voot Originals announced the launch of the 2 films. The premiere was held, the promos were released and social media was filled with happy posts of the 2 well acclaimed short films. But unfortunately no credit was given to Abhijit Das for the story. There was no mention of him in the film, the release press conference or the social media posts. The person who wrote the stories and got the project rolling, was forgotten completely. He was paid only 20% of the agreed amount because apparently the producers had made losses. A call to Mohona Films resulted in them insulting Abhijit and hanging up on him. Apparently he had disappeared on them and thus didn’t deserve any money or credit. But then why did they chase him to hand over the rights? Why did they use the stories he had written and pitched along with them if he had done nothing in the project? 

Abhijit says,”An artist works more for appreciation than money. Appreciation and celebration of the efforts of an artist don’t need money. The distributors and channels need to be aware that once art is corrupted by mistrust and apprehension, it’s the content which gets violated. It’s not pure any more. One shouldn’t start creating with preconditions and apprehensions. It’s like a #metoo of intellectual property where the perpetrators need to be talked about and justice needs to be given to the survivors. Because it’s nothing short of violation of the chastity of art. And the more we stay silent, the more we encourage this exploitation in the name of business.”