Deepika Padukone's latest Levi's ad had been turning heads for all the right reasons, until recently. The ad has now come under the scanner of plagiarism row. Yeh Ballet director, Sooni Taraporevala, has accused Levi's ad makers of copying everything from her film. Sooni took to social media to call out the copycat culture. She also stressed on the fact that this had nothing to do with Deepika Padukone or any other cast members in the ad.
She wrote, "A couple of days ago @cindy_jourdain brought this @levis_in ad to my attention. I was shocked to see our Yeh Ballet dance studio set in this ad, because it was conceptualized & created out of a derelict space by Shailaja Sharma @shalzoid (our PD) from scratch and dismantled after our shoot. No such dance studio exists in Mumbai which is why we built it. Basically @nadiaeye (the director of this ad) saw Yeh Ballet and decided to plagiarize our set down to the very last detail (swipe for screenshot). Would Levi's and the director ever think of doing that in the west without permission / acknowledgment, and passing it off as their own creative work? This is not homage this is intellectual theft! It's SO unfair to our wonderful production designer @shalzoid to have her work ripped off like that."
She further said, "Copycat culture in India needs to be called out and cancelled. You would think a foreign production company and director would know better. Are you so creatively bankrupt? What were you thinking? @levis_in @nadiaeye @offroadfilms @rupinsuchak @newland.tv PS. contrary to what clickbait news headlines say, this has nothing to do with Deepika Padukone or anyone else in the cast."
Sooni also shared a screenshot where a user had asked Rupin if they had shot at Yeh Ballet dance studio and he had replied in affirmative. "Yes we did :) in fact that's what our director wanted so we had to recreate that," Rupid had replied.
The Deepika Padukone starrer ad was massively praised by her fans. Ranveer Singh, Hrithik Roshan and Ayushmann Khurrana had also praised the ad.
