Is Newton copy of the Iranian movie Secret Ballot? Here is the truth

Amidst allegations of Rajkummar Rao's Newton being a copy of the Iranian film Secret Ballot, the makers of the latter have confirmed that the Bollywood films has no hint of plagiarism.

Soon after the announcement of Newton's entry into Oscars 2018, controversy started with allegations that the film was copied from Secret Ballot. 

While director Amit V Masurkar had rubbished the buzz, the producer of Secret Ballot himself has now confirmed that there is no sign of plagiarism.

Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap took the issue seriously and directly contacted producer Marco Mueller. After watching Newton, Marco not only denied that the Bollywood film was copied, but also praised the flick.

"With over enthusiastic media and our cinephiles with over active imagination.. who called 'Newton' a copy of 'Secret Ballot' ..here is what the producer of 'Secret Ballot' said to me after watching Newton. I requested the link of Newton from its director and send it to Marco Muller, the producer. And he wrote back 'A pretty decent film, definitely no rip off from our Secret Ballot (even if the general concept is the same )' and then I asked him if I can share his response on Social Media ? He replied ,'please feel free as you see fit, there is not even a hint of plagiarisation [sic]", Anurag posted on Facebook with a screenshot of the conversation.

Later Anurag shared another screenshot of an interview of Secret Ballot director Babak Payami where the latter also responded in support of the makers of Newton.

Anurag took this opportunity to slam the critics of Newton as he captioned his second post: "And this was Babak's answer to an indian journalist who wanted to know what Babak felt( without having seen the film) I don't know yet if this interview is out. With permission I am putting up the screen shot. I hope this puts enough shame in our controversy mongers .. now that's how a true artist thinks. Babak now has the film and he will see it soon. But this is how he thinks and looks at us (indirectly) [sic]".

Given the clean chit from the makers of Secret Ballot, the allegations of Newton being a copy of the Iranian film now fall flat.