Amazon sued for copyright infringement

Amazon Studios had been sued over the film "Suspiria" by The Estate of Ana Mendieta, which has alleged it is copied from the late artistes work.

According to variety.com, director Luca Guadagnino's film and the trailer used images which were derived from two of Mendieta's pieces from the 1970s, "Rape Scene" and "Untitled (Silueta Series, Mexico)", and the estate is seeking damages and a restraining order to bar Amazon from using the infringing images.

The suit was filed in federal court in Seattle.

Earlier, Guadagnino gave interviews in which he said he was inspired by Mendieta's work and wanted to remake the original "Suspiria" because it was "soaked in the ideas of feminist art".

As per the lawsuit, her estate is managed by her sister, Raquelin Mendieta, and her niece, Raquel Cecilia Mendieta. The estate allows her work to be reproduced for scholarly purposes, but not for commercial use.

The estate sent a cease and desist letter to Amazon in July. In late August, Amazon dropped a second trailer that did not contain the images. The studio screened the film for the estate's agent in early September, after it premiered at the Venice Film Festival.

Some of the images had been removed from the film, but the agent flagged eight others that also bore similarities to Mendieta's work.

Mendieta was a Cuban-American artist who addressed themes of violence against women, and used images of nature to create silhouettes of her body. She died at 36 after a fall from a New York apartment tower in 1985.

--IANS

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