It seems like it has become mandatory for actor-director Prem to go through reams of trouble with each film that he is a part of and especially with respect to their titles. His last film that raked up controversy was Prem Adda and he succeeded. This time trouble seems to be brewing around his upcoming film Hitler. Apparently, the title Hitler has already been registered at the Chamber by director-producer Teshi Venkatesh and now director Raghu Hassan is trying to get the title Prem’s Hitler registered for his film but the Chamber seems to be against him.
An upset Raghu tried to explain his side of the story. “I tried my best to get this title and I had hoped that this film would be free of any controversy unlike Prem’s other films. It has happened so often that people are beginning to think it is a gimmick. To my bad luck, this mess with the title just happened. Like every other upcoming director, I had registered the title along with the banner name Mathrushri Movies, six months ago. Since the Chamber approved the banner name, I assumed that even the title was approved and so went ahead with the posters. I was completely shocked when the Chamber called me and revealed that the title had already been registered by someone else,” says Raghu, adding, “In fact I had written three letters to the Chamber with regard to the title. I don’t know whether they reacted late or whether I had made a mistake while going through the process.”
Raghu has decided not to give up and is ready to fight for justice. “My question now to the Chamber is if they can allow titles like The Leader and Mass Leader, Masterpiece and Mastermind, Bholenath and Bum Bum Bholenath, then why is the Chamber not approving Prem’s Hitler. Unfortunately for us, the person who has registered the title Hitler is a committee member at the Chamber and thus it becomes even more difficult for us to convince the rest of the body and retain the title. I don’t know at this moment whether to prepare for my film’s shoot or to run around for the title. Nowadays, people are registering titles at the Chamber only to sell it later at a high price. I believe that this is really not the right way to encourage upcoming directors. In fact, I have witnessed how the title The Leader got approved at the Chamber in two days. Why is there a different judgement for different people. If they don’t consider our title then let them cancel the other titles too,” he explains.
The director is yet to talk to Teshi Venkatesh about the issue. “Apparently, the producer who has the possession of Hitler has announced that he wants to make a film with that title starring Sudeep. Our only request now is let Sudeep himself make the official announcement that he is doing a movie called Hitler and we are ready to wait for two to three years to get the title,” says Raghu.
Now all eyes are on the Karnataka Film Chamber to see how they handle the matter. Thomas D’Souza, the president of KFCC says, “Yes, the matter has been discussed at the Chamber and I have also explained the situation to them and are helping them to sort things through. We don’t want to violate the Chamber rules of giving two titles of the same name. I have requested the director and producer to convince the person to take over the title from him. We will come to a decision in a couple of days.”
Till then we need to wait and watch who gets to be the original Hitler?