Aby can fly high now; no more legal issues

Vineeth Sreenivasan’s upcoming movie Aby which was entwined in legal issues can fly high now as the Ernakulam Munsif court has dismissed Pradeeep M Nair’s plea to stay the release of Aby.

Aby written by Santhosh Echikkanam and directed by Srikanth Murali was caught in legal trouble after the team of Prithviraj’s upcoming movie Vimanam filed a case against them. Both the movies deal with a similar plot of a youngster who builds an aircraft on his own out of his love for flying.

Saji Thomas, a deaf and mute man hailing from Idukki was the inspiration behind the story. He had overcome all his physical disability and financial constraints to build an aircraft on his own.

Aby’s writer Santhosh Echikkanam first wrote a script about a boy and his love for flying. When he heard about Saji Thomas’ story, Santhosh met him to learn more about his life and experiences. He later incorporated some of Saji’s real life events in his script.

However, Pradeep M Nair brought the rights to make Saji’s life into a feature film. So when the team of Vimanam heard about Aby’s similar story, they approached FEFKA. When that didn’t find a solution they filed a case in August to stall the shoot of Aby. The court dismissed their plea following which they filed a case on personality rights grounds. This is probably the first time in the history of Malayalam cinema that a case was filed on personality rights.

After the legal issues, Santhosh Echikkanam reworked on his script and removed the scenes inspired from Saji’s real life. Aby was the first to go on floors. Vineeth Sreenivasan’s character Aby is not physically challenged while Prithviraj is playing a deaf and mute person in Vimanam.

Eros International was initially set to produce Aby but later backed out due to the legal issues. Later Suvin K Varkey came forward to produce the movie under the banner Little Big Films. The team of Aby overcame all the troubles and successfully completed the shoot.

After watching Aby and going through the scripts of both these movies, Ernakulam Munsif Court pronounced the judgement in favour of Aby’s team.

Aby’s trailer was released few days back to good response in social media pages. The movie is expected to hit the screens soon.