A Melbourne film production company, co-producer of the Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor starrer 'Qurbaan', has reportedly failed to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to the production crew.
Workers and contractors on the movie have taken legal action against Swish Films, which was producing the film with the Indian company Dharma Productions in the American city of Philadelphia.
The director of the film Rensil D'Silva has described the movie as 'a romantic thriller set against the backdrop of global terrorism.’
Swish Films even produced the Bollywood film 'Main Aur Mrs Khanna', also starring Kapoor, in Melbourne last year.
According to a March report in the Philadelphia Daily News, hundreds of workers, including a stuntman, caterers, a car dealer and the Philadelphia Boys Choir, had been left unpaid and bewildered when 500,000 dollars worth of cheques issued by Swish allegedly bounced.
'If you encounter a Swish Group employee, immediately grasp the pocket your wallet is in and carefully back up. Do not turn your back on them. It is the equivalent to dropping the soap in a prison shower,' the Age quoted stuntman John-Eric Schuman as saying on a website he set up to publicise Swish's alleged actions.
Swish Films is one of several subsidiaries of Swish Group, and they have all been placed in voluntary administration this week, with a creditors' meeting to be held on Monday.
While Swish Group managing director Cary Stynes did not return calls, he had said in March that the cheques issued by Swish were not honoured because of a delay in a transfer of funds from Australia.
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