Kiran Rao’s missing Ladies recently came into fire when social media users noted similarities in their plot with Arabic short film Burka City. While writer Biplab Goswami has already released his clarification on the matter, on the other hand the director of Burka City also addressed the controversy and expressed his desire to meet the film’s makers.
During a recent conversation with IFP, Burka City Director Fabris Brack revealed that he had seen the missing women until the similarities were taken into their notice. He mentioned that after seeing Kiran Rao’s direction, he was “shocked and unhappy” because he realized that the film was a “big success” in India and even shortlisted for the Oscars.
He expressed his concern, highlighted his early plans to adopt his short film in a feature film, which he believes will not be possible now.
When asked about his next step to address the issue after watching Indian sarcastic comedy, he mentioned, “For now, I am not sure – perhaps to discuss with missing women’s production team.”
In addition, Fabris also agreed to equality between her film and missing women- both films have a picture of ‘compassionate, loving, naive husband’, ‘violent and disgusting’ husband, ‘corrupt, violent’ police officer and especially a woman with a veil.
The director also said, “Finally there is a similarity in the plot twist, where we learn that the woman deliberately chose to escape from her derogatory husband – a major legend element in Burka city.”
During the conversation, the director of Burka City revealed that his film was written and shot respectively before appearing on festivals in 2017 and 2018. It was also shown at two Indian film festivals, including – Kolkata: Kalpanirjhar International Short Film Festival (December 2019) and Aurovelle: Aurovela Film Festival (January 2020).
On the other hand, missing Ladies Writer Bipalab Goswami issued a statement on Saturday and claimed that in 2014 the missing women were registered with the screenwriting Writers Association and in 2018 in 2018 the feature-length script with two brides SWA with SWA. “These allegations not only reduce my efforts as a writer, but also make tireless efforts of the entire film production team,” he wrote.
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