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Renowned Malayalam screenwriter Nishad Koya’s allegation that director Dijo Jose Antony created the recently released Nivin Pauly-starrer Malayalee From India by plagiarising his script has gained traction after he presented evidence to support it in front of the media.
The controversy started when Koya, who rose to fame by penning movies like Ordinary, Madhura Naranga, Thoppil Joppan etc, a day prior to Malayalee From India’s release, shared a post on social media “predicting” the film’s plotline. However, he removed the post shortly afterwards, sparking rumours that it was because the film’s storyline closely resembled a project Koya had announced in 2021, supposed to be directed by Joshiy and starring Jayasurya, but never officially materialised.
Meanwhile, during a recent chat with Cue Studio, Dijo and Malayalee From India’s producer Listin Stephen lashed out at Koya for levelling the allegation just before the film’s release and dubbed what he did as unprofessional. “He (Koya) knows me and Nivin. He could have come and talked to us. Or even filed a complaint with the Producers’ Association. What he did was very bad,” Listin said, reminding all that Malayalee From India went on floors about 15 months ago.
Dijo also mentioned the example of his debut film Queen, which revolved around a college and a batch of mechanical engineering students comprising only one girl and the remaining boys, which was released alongside another film which too centred on the story of engineering college students. Both Dijo and Listin asserted that Koya never attempted to get in touch with them.
However, a day later, Koya gave an interview on the same channel and arrived with printouts of purported WhatsApp chat screenshots claiming that he did get in touch with Dijo much before and alerted him that he heard there were similarities between their projects, but no avail. “I have the Whatsapp chat with me. In 2021, we had announced a project with this script starring Jayasurya and directed by Joshiy. However, it did not materialise due to certain issues. Jayasurya then shared the story with Dijo who seemed interested in the project. On Jayasurya’s insistence, I read out the script to Dijo, who curtly rejected the offer,” he told Cue Studio, Onmanorama reported.
“I later approached Prithviraj Sukumaran with the same script during the shoot of his film Salaar. That’s when Prithviraj informed me that Dijo was doing a similar story with Nivin Pauly. I was shocked. I sent Dijo a voice note on Whatsapp sharing my concern. Dijo promised me the film would be entirely different except for the India-Pakistan angle. When I saw the film’s teaser, I realised that the story was almost the same, which is why I decided to publish the post with the storyline on Facebook,” he added.
With Koya stating his mentioning the names of revered figures such as Prithviraj, Joshiy, Jayasurya, etc., the matter is likely to snowball into a major controversy, casting a long shadow on either Dijo or Koya’s reputation.
In his review of the movie, The Indian Express’ Anandu Suresh wrote, “Dijo Jose Antony’s Nivin Pauly-starrer Malayalee From India is loud, irritating and underwhelming and serves as a reality check for Malayalees amidst the recent flurry of successful films.”
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