Is Shirish Kunder's 'Kriti' copied from Aneel Neupane's short film 'Bob'?

Is Shirish Kunder’s short film Kriti — which has won much praise since it was released on YouTube on Wednesday night — a copy?

Nepali filmmaker and photographer Aneel Neupane has alleged that Kriti picks up on the central concept of his short film, Bob, which was put out on Vimeo in 2015.

In a detailed Facebook post, Neupane has said that what angered him most is not that Kunder (seemingly) copied his idea for Kriti; it is that while the Bob team struggled to find the funds to make their film, Kunder faced no such issues in directing his version.

While the premise of both Bob and Kriti — a young man and his relationship with a psychiatrist who is treating him for delusions, and the question of whether or not his girlfriend is real or a figment of his imagination — is no doubt similar, the fact is that sometimes, people do have the same creative ideas. Yes, the exact same ideas. It isn’t unknown.

What causes some unease then, is not Kriti’s more than passing resemblance in terms of plot to Bob (in fact Kriti carries its narrative further ahead than Bob does); it is the similarities in terms of some visuals and dialogues as well.

In the opening scene Kriti — just like Bob — begins with the camera lingering on the psychiatrist’s framed degrees and then moves on to the conversation between the patient and doctor. While the girlfriend in Bob doesn’t suffer from agoraphobia, like in Kriti, she too — conveniently enough — does not have a social media profile. After the first scene, there is a fair bit of divergence in terms of details between the two films, while the overarching narrative does stay the same.

Neupane has said that filmmakers in Nepal are routinely ‘inspired’ (the euphemism for copying as acknowledged by the film industry) by Bollywood, and that this might be the rare contrary case.

In the meantime, Kunder has refuted Neupane’s allegations.

“That short film (Bob) was released on 12 May this year whereas we shot Kriti in February, after which it was in post production. How is it even possible to ‘lift’ the idea, unless I was time travelling? These allegations are technically, factually and logically, baseless,” he told PTI.

Kunder also responded to Neupane’s point that Bob was released online in October 2015, as a private video on Vimeo, by saying, “Their other claim is that they shared a private Vimeo link with their close friends in October. Now, I am not even friends with the makers and the video was private so how can I see it ? I am not alleging anything against them, but it seems like an act just to gain some publicity.”

About the copying allegations, Kunder, 43, said, “All of this just spoils the fun of everything.”

Is Kriti ‘inspired’ by Bob or is it simply a coincidence? Watch both the films here, and take a call:

Shirish Kunder’s Kriti:

And here is Aneel Neupane’s Bob:

— with PTI inputs