'Dasara' title issue: Producer Sharmiela Mandre approaches film chamber with copyright claim

Actor Sharmiela Mandre's maiden effort as a film producer seems to have hit a roadblock of sorts. Titled 'Dasara', the project is well on its course to a bonafide theatrical release this year but with Telugu star Nani's upcoming film sharing the same title, the recent developments have raised a few concerns for Sharmiela & Co. In this vein, Sharmiela Mandre has taken the matter to the Karnataka Film Chamber of Commerce with a founded claim that the Telugu team has "violated" the title rights which affects her film's identity.
Stating that she had registered the title 'DASARA' way back in September of 2020, Sharmiela Mandre registered a complaint with KFCC to bring the matter to light. The written complaint also highlights that the makers of the Telugu film 'Dasara' had released the teaser recently in four different languages, including Kannada. However, with the title already registered in Kannada, the makers of the Telugu film have violated the title rights which warrants due intervention by the film chamber.

Speaking about the same, Sharmiela Mandre shares: "When I had approached the film chamber back in 2020 to register my title 'Dasara', I made sure that it was available in Kannada. One has to follow this procedure all over the country and if you plan on releasing your film in multiple languages, you are required to register the same title in each language. The makers of the Telugu film hadn't done so for their Kannada (dubbed) release and when they wrote to the KFCC recently about the title, they were told that it was already taken. I suppose with the teaser release date already planned, the team had no choice but to go ahead - the matter is now with the KFCC who are ensuring that the Telugu team comes up with a new title for the Kannada release".

As a new entrant to the production game, Sharmiela believes that she is slowly warming up to the many challenges but the title clash surely came as a shock to her entire team. The teaser of the multilingual film 'Dasara', starring Nani and directed by Srikanth Odella, was on March 20th
"Just when we believe that we are well on course to release our film soon, the title issue comes a huge shock to all of us! We followed due diligence all along to register the title beforehand and have pushed out so much publicity material already with the title. I have come across a few similar instances in the past and I do expect our situation to be resolved amicably because this confusion will hamper the progress of both films. I am in constant touch with our film chamber who assure that they have communicated the issue clearly with Nani's team and I do hope that we see the resolution sooner than later," adds Sharmiela Mandre.

'Dasara' stars Sharmiela and Sathish Ninasam in the lead with dancer Rukmini Vijayakumar too play a pivotal role in the film. An experimental crime thriller, 'Dasara' has been written and directed by Arvind Sastry - the film is currently in the post-production phase and one can expect the release date to be announced soon.