Three days before Womaniya begins filming, Anurag Kashyap and Pritish Nandy engage in a tussle over film’s title

By Bollywood Reporter

on February 07, 2019

Three days before Taapsee Pannu’s and Bhumi Pednekar’s Womaniya is scheduled to begin filming, producer Anurag Kashyap has involved himself in a tussle over the title of the film with producer Pritish Nandy, a leading daily reports. Anurag had created the term Womaniya for the title of his Gangs of Wasseypur song in 2012 and holds the Intellectual Property Rights to it while Nandy had registered the term as a film title previously.

“It was only when the makers announced the film that this came to light and when they went to officially register the title, it was brought to their notice that the title was already registered with PNC (Pritish Nandy Communications),” a source told the daily.

[caption id="attachment_206450" align="aligncenter" width="647"] File photos of Taapsee and Bhumi[/caption]

Anurag, meanwhile, spoke to the daily about the matter and said that he has been requesting Nandy for the title “politely” since a very long time and even spoke to lawyers about it. “I don’t even know if it’s legal to do this. It’s like encroaching on someone’s property, then asking for an obscene amount of money to get off it. We have been politely requesting Nandy for the title for a very long time and have even consulted lawyers on the matter. We’ve been told that no one can hoard a title. But to get a censor certificate, the producers’ association has to register the title which makes the law contradictory. It’s strange that I have to fight for a word that we coined and brought into usage,” Anurag said.

[caption id="attachment_148221" align="aligncenter" width="647"] File photo of Anurag Kashyap[/caption]

Nandy, on the other hand, also spoke to the daily about the title and said, “The title Womaniya is owned by Pritish Nandy Communications Ltd. PNC has registered this title with IMPPA (Indian Motion Pictures Producers’ Association), a trade body. PNC also has registered the title with the Trade Mark registry, Govt of India. Both IMPPA and FMC (Film Makers Combine) have written to Anurag Kashyap several times asking him not to use the title Womaniya illegally since its owned by PNC.”

Nandy, nevertheless, denied that Anurag had approached him for the title, and said, “Not that I know of.”

Womaniya is expected to begin filming on February 10.