Terry Gilliam sued by street artists over new film

Former Monty Python star Terry Gilliam has been accused of copyright infringement by street artists for reproducing one of one of their wall murals in his new film starring Matt Damon.

The artists, two Argentines and a Canadian, accuse Gilliam and the film’s production company of “blatant misappropriation” of their work in the forthcoming film The Zero Theorem.

The complaint, filed at the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, centres on a mural called Castillo which is displayed in the Zona de Graffiti area of Buenos Aires.

Artists ‘Jaz’ (real name Franco Fasoli) and ‘Ever’ (Nicolas Escalada), as well as Canadian ‘Troy Lovegates, aka Other’ (Derek Mehaffey), allege that the film—due to be released next month— violates their copyright and that they are due tens of thousands for their work.

Gilliam is said to have shot the film, about a computer hacker, in Bucharest, Romania, where one of the important locations is a burnt-out chapel.

According to the lawsuit, the exterior wall of the chapel features a colourful mural that is “a blatant misappropriation” of the Castillo mural.

"The Copyrighted Artwork has achieved international recognition in the art world, and is widely recognized by the public in Argentina and abroad," the lawsuit claimed.

"Castillo is so important that it is one of the few public artworks that have survived for years in that particular Zona de Graffiti," it added.

It is not the first time Gilliam, a US-born star of the hit UK comedy series Monty Python, has been accused of copyright infringement.

In 1995, he was accused of copying the design for a torture chair used in the film Twelve Monkeys that was "obviously based" on a drawing by artist Lebbeus Woods, according to the complaint.

Woods eventually settled the case but the latest complaint says Gilliam has shown a “repeated” disregard for copyright law and had not “learnt his lesson”.