Ananta Jalil brushes off ‘Din: The Day’ director’s allegations

Bangladeshi actor-producer-businessman Ananta Jalil shrugged off the complaints made by Iranian filmmaker Morteza Atashzamzam about their film ‘Din: The Day’ on Thursday evening. In a statement posted from his verified Facebook page, Ananta said, “I don’t know if the Instagram post is real or not. But what it says is totally baseless. I have all the legal documents, which clearly state that the Iranian production cost was paid by the Iranian producers and I paid for the shooting in Bangladesh.”

He added: “A group of people representing their production team came to Bangladesh whom we treated with great respect and made sure that everything was done following our contract.”

“The director himself met me a few days ago. He never mentioned these issues back then. So, I don’t understand why he made those baseless claims on Instagram.”

Earlier the same day, Morteza wrote in an Instagram post: “Ananta Jalil broke our agreement and contract.He did not fulfill his responsibilities and promises as we agreed.”

He claimed Ananta breached the contract by distorting his creation and also shared an animation of the film’s poster on an Instagram reel with the word ‘fake’.

“The name of the movie was supposed to be ‘Day’ (rooz) but nothing happened as we planned. I was the main and major producer but he continued the production in his way, with his content and form and shapes,” he wrote.

The Iranian filmmaker also said he would sue Ananta and register a complaint against him at the court in Tehran, Iran, and have it followed up by an international lawyer at the court in Bangladesh.

Morteza added that he would also reveal the original contract in public and the main budget of the film.

The legal prosecution is the only way to reveal the truth, said the director.

Since 2002, Morteza has directed and produced more than forty independent films, documentaries, and television series. He was also the director of the Bam Film Festival (2008 & 2010) in USA. The 2016 film ‘Melancholy’ was his first feature film as a director.

‘Din: The Day’ was released on Eid-ul-Azha (July 10, 2022) and received a lot of attention from movie-goers. The film has reportedly opened in more than 100 film theatres across the country.

Ananta previously claimed that the film had a budget of more than Tk 100crore.