Silk Smitha’s brother accuses Ekta Kapoor and Milan Luthria of making a film on his sibling’s life without family’s consent, calls it ‘obscene’ and sends a legal notice
Director Milan Luthria’s The Dirty Picture has managed to shock the audience as planned. But little did the filmmaker know, that his bold filmmaking would manage to shock him as well.
The film based on the life of controversial actress Silk Smitha has now irked her brother V Naga Vara Prasad. He has now sent a legal notice to Milan and producer Ekta Kapoor for making the film without the family’s permission.
“We came to know through TV channels and newspaper reports that The Dirty Picture portrays my sister in a rather obscene way. Ekta Kapoor is making the film with Vidya Balan in the lead role. Neither the producer nor the director contacted us (the family). What right do the producer and the director have to make this film, without the family’s consent?” Vara Prasad questioned while talking to Mumbai Mirror.
Confirming that he has indeed sent a legal notice to the makers of The Dirty Picture, Vara Prasad added, “There still has been no response from their side. We are now going to send a second notice in a couple of days through a High Court lawyer in Hyderabad. If they go ahead with the release, we will be compelled to initiate proceedings.”
Silk Smitha, whose original name is Vijayalakshmi, hailed from Kovvali village near the famous Kolleru Lake in West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh. Her family still lives in the village, where her brother is a semi-literate agriculturist. Vara Prasad, the only brother of Smitha, said that the family and relatives were upset with the news about a film on his sister with obscene content.
“We learned that they made the film based on inputs given by an alleged boyfriend of Smitha in Chennai. If they wanted to make a perfect film with facts in place, they should have contacted us to know about her childhood at least,” said her brother.
Vara Prasad added, “We have to see the content of the film. Whatever is objectionable has to be deleted. Those days, the media was limited hence we could not get the actual truth behind her death. Many believe that she ended her life because of financial problems. It may not be the truth.”
Prasad also made it clear that the family was not looking for any monetary gain. “We don’t need anything from them. We just want them not to hurt us and our relatives,” he stated. He said the family would do its best to prevent release of the film on Dec. 2, the birthday of Silk Smitha.
When contacted, Milan Luthria said, “Basically people like us tend to get into a situation like this very late in the day. It is very difficult to say anything at all as our legal advisors have warned us not to comment since the matter is subjudice.
My only concern is that things should go well and this course of events should not harm the product. It is tough to say anything more at this stage, as we don’t know exactly how things are going to unfold. The lawyers are looking in to the papers and they will take proper action.
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