Prasanth Murali Padmanabhan, the director of the upcoming Malayalam film Lalbagh, denied plagiarising scenes from another Malayalam film Trance for his film’s teaser in a social media post.
Following the release of Lalbagh’s teaser on YouTube, many people alleged that a scene in the teaser bears a similarity to Trance, which stars Fahadh Faasil.
Prasanth said that the scene in Lalbagh’s teaser was shot in December 2019, while Trance was released in February 2020.
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“It’s very hard to capture an important scene without a dialogue in a way that people can understand (that’s also not a normal task). When you see Lalbagh, you will understand why this scene was done this way. The reason I said this much is because I saw a lot of comments comparing a scene from Trance under the YouTube link of the teaser,” Prasanth wrote.
“This is just a coincidence. Not copying. Also, I don’t know Trance’s writer Vincent Vadakkan or the director Anwar Rasheed to have learnt about this shot earlier,” he said.
“Isn’t it bad to say ‘copycat’ about a movie like Lalbagh with no big star cast? Not only cinema, but the whole world is in this situation where we don’t know what is ahead. Think positive, do positive, stay positive,” he said.
Lalbagh’s star cast includes Mamta Mohandas in the lead role, along with Rahul Madhav, Sijoy Varghese, Neha Saxena, Nandini Rai, Rahul Dev Shetty in supporting roles. Director Prasanth and actor Mamta are teaming up for the second time in Lalbagh after Paisa Paisa (2013).
According to The Hindu, the film was shot fully in Bengaluru. Mamta plays the role of a nurse named Sarah. Mamta says, “The film opens with a murder. Sarah’s husband is found dead when there is a birthday party going on in their house and the guests are all close friends of the family. Sarah then joins hands with the police to track down the murderer. It is her quest to find the reason for her husband’s death.”
The film, which is produced by Raj Zachariah, will release in theatres on May 29. While Rahul Raj is composing the film’s music, Antony Jo is the cinematographer, with Suneesh Sebastion as the editor.