M. Night Shyamalan acquitted of copyright charges in ‘Servant’ trial

Los Angeles, Jan 25 (IANS) Filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan is breathing a sigh of relief as a federal jury has ruled unanimously in his favour along with Apple on Friday, in a copyright trial.

The trial saw the defendants accused of stealing elements from an independent feature in the writing of the streaming series ‘Servant’, reports ‘Variety’.

The seven-day trial in Riverside, California, which began on January 14, saw Italian-born director Francesca Gregorini seeking as much as $81 million in damages, alleging that Shyamalan and collaborators had lifted narrative elements of her 2013 film, ‘The Truth About Emanuel’, without credit.

As per ‘Variety’, Gregorini’s feature follows a delusional mother who treats a baby doll as if it were a real infant, along with a nanny who corroborates that false reality. Gregorini saw significant plot similarities between her own film and ‘Servant’.

Shyamalan testified on Wednesday that he and the other creators of the show had never seen or heard of Gregorini’s film before the litigation, saying that the situation was “clearly, 100%, a misunderstanding”.

“This accusation is the exact opposite of everything I do and everything I try to represent”, he told the court. “I would have never allowed it. None of the people that I work with would ever do anything like that”.

Gregorini testified last week that she was “shocked” when she first saw the trailer for ‘Servant’, and believed that her film had been stolen from her. In addition to the plot elements, she told the jury about a series of shots and scenes in ‘Servant’ that she thought had been lifted, such as a scene when the nanny treats the doll as real even though she’s alone, and another when the nanny faints.

She said she was advised not to sue, and has faced career repercussions for doing so. But she said she wanted to take a stand against this sort of theft, which she alleged is prevalent in the industry.

“I wanted to hold the defendants accountable for what they did and to do my part so that this doesn’t happen to anyone else in my industry ever again”, she said in her testimony.

The defense lawyers argued there were many differences between the two projects. ‘Servant’ was a supernatural thriller, they said, while ‘The Truth About Emanuel’ was a coming-of-age drama.

When he was on the stand, Shyamalan was asked by his lawyer about the shots and elements that were allegedly taken from ‘Emanuel’. He said there was nothing particularly original, for instance, about a character fainting.

–IANS

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