Deepika Padukone's recent TVC for a denim brand has been accused of plagiarism by Yeh Ballet director Sooni Taraporevala. The filmmaker took to her Instagram page and wrote about how the whole set of Yeh Ballet designed by Shailaja Sharma has been blatantly copied for the commercial. The designing for the TVC is done by Rupin Suchak who was even asked by an Instagram user. In a screenshot shared by Sooni, Rubin's comment read as "Yes we did. In fact, that’s what our director wanted so we had to recreate that."
Meanwhile, Sooni wrote in her post, "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/acknowledgement, 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."
Sooni further wrote, "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."
She concluded by mentioning Deepika and how her casting has nothing to do with plagiarism. Taraporevala penned, "PS. contrary to what clickbait news headlines say, this has nothing to do with Deepika Padukone or anyone else in the cast."
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Meanwhile, Yeh Ballet produced by Siddharth Roy Kapur is a Netflix original film that streamed in 2020.
