Yeh Ballet director Sooni Taraporevala accuses Deepika Padukone’s apparel ad as intellectual theft

Only recently, Deepika Padukone was announced as the global brand ambassador for an apparel brand that she had shot for years ago. While reminiscing the good old days, Deepika Padukone and the makers of the ad film have been accused of plagiarism. Sooni Taraporevala, director of Yeh Ballet, was shocked to see the exact set recreated and used for the advertisement starring the Chhapaak actress. In a screenshot that she shared, the advertisement’s production designer Rupin Suchak admitted that they were asked to recreate the set from the 2019 Netflix film.

Yeh Ballet director Sooni Taraporewala accuses Deepika Padukone’s apparel ad as intellectual theft

Sooni Taraporevala took to her Instagram to share, “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.”

Speaking further about it she 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.”

Take a look at her post and the screenshots that she shared.