Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap has voiced his support to the team of Newton, amid reports that the film has striking similarities with an Iranian movie Secret Ballot.
The 45-year-old director took to Twitter to praise the Amit Masurkar-directed movie, which was announced as India’s official entry for the Best Foreign Language Film category in the Oscars.
Kashyap also took a dig at those claiming the movie was inspired by Babak Payami’s 2001 directorial venture.
“Newton is as much a copy of Secret Ballot as The Avengers is of Watan Ke Rakhwale. Newton is an award winner from Berlin Fest and I can promise you those curators watch more films in a year than rest of us do in a lifetime,” Kashyap wrote.
Newton, which features Rajkummar Rao as the lead, revolves around a government employee struggling to supervise voting in a conflict-area of Chhattisgarh, while Secret Ballot focuses on a day in the life of a woman ballot officer who visits a desolate place in Iran to convince people to cast their vote.