Orissa Cinema

Remember E Mana Manena?

The Mihir Das/Arindam/Kajal/Barsha starrer is currently running houseful and also is mired with controversies.

The film has entered into a legal problem as Hyderabad-based film production house M/s Prasad Production Pvt Ltd (PPPL) has alleged the movie has violated Copyright Act.

The movie `Ea Mana Manena’ produced under the banner M/s Maa Bhavani Pictures of Bhubaneswar was released on March 29 just hours before a lower court in Bhubaneswar had restrained its producer from releasing the movie. The producer of the movie Bijaya Kumar claimed as the movie was released before the court verdict was pronounced, the court’s ruling had become “in-fructuos” and the same was not binding on him. The young film producer, who has made a movie after almost a decade of his premier movie in 1995, has also challenged the lower court’s order in Orissa High Court. A fast track court of Bhubaneswar had on March 29 restrained the producer from releasing its movie after taking up a petition filed by the managing director of PPPL. The PPPL in its petition had prayed for an ad-interim injuction against Bijaya Kumar and urged the court to restrain him from releasing his movie as the later has violated the Copyright Act. The Hyderabad-based film production house claimed in his petition that the Oriya movie is a copy of a Telugu blockbuster film `Arya’.

The managing director of PPPL in his petition had claimed that he had purchased the copyright of the Telugu film in January 2006 for Rs 37 lakhs to make films in other different languages, including Oriya language. But the Oriya film producer maintains that the storyline of his romantic movie is entirely of his own and he has not copied it from any other cinema. “I have never seen the Telugu film `Arya’ nor have I read or heard about its content. I released my movie after obtaining a certificate from the Censor Board, Kolkata,” Bijaya Kumar who is also in construction business told mediapersons here .

Petition filed

He also said his movie was running full house in many places and it would be released in other cinema houses of the soon. In order to avoid any further legal hassles over his movie, Bijaya Kumar also filed an application before the Orissa High Court on Monday urging the court to set aside the lower court’s order of March 29.