Mumbai, June 1 (IANS) Director-actor Ramesh Sippy once shared an interesting anecdote when a few producers from south India paid him a visit.
A recently resurfaced video, shared by the Indian state-broadcaster, Prasar Bharati, shows him sharing the reason behind the producers’ visit. He shared that his production had already remade a Tamil film in Hindi without official paperwork on securing the rights of the film, as he was inspired by the film.
The film in question is ‘Ram Aur Shyam’, which he reimagined as ‘Seeta Aur Geeta’. Contrary to what he thought, the producers were there to discuss the rights but not for ‘Ram Aur Shyam’ but for the Tamil version of ‘Seeta Aur Geeta’.
He said, “We got a visit from producers from the south. They were the original makers of ‘Ram Aur Shyam’. So we were a little tense thinking, ‘Have they come for some kind of copyright situation?’ My father was there. I was there. We sat them down and chai, coffee and all that and said, ‘Please tell us what we can do for you’. They said, ‘You have made this film ‘Seeta Aur Geeta’. Is it possible that you give us the rights to make this film in Tamil? Okay, and we want to take Hema Malini only to play the role’”.
“I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. And then they said, ‘Mr. Sippy, what would be the cost? What would you like to receive?’. I said, ‘Please take it and please make it. There is no cost to it. I was inspired by your film to make ‘Seeta Aur Geeta’. You’re most welcome to go ahead and make it’. We gave him the letter to go ahead and make that film”, he added.
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