On August 12, 2014, a trio of street artists filed a lawsuit in federal court against film director (and Monty Python actor) Terry Gilliam for allegedly plagiarizing their mural in his latest movie, The Zero Theorem.
The mural, or “Copyrighted Artwork,” was painted collaboratively by the artists in 2010, in the zona de graffiti on Fitz Roy Street in Buenos Aires.
Gilliam’s film was shot in Romania in 2012; it tells the story of an eccentric computer genius who lives in a burnt-out partially converted chapel. The chapel exterior features the “infringing mural,” which the plaintiff-artists claim is a “blatant misappropriation” of their work.
The artists allegedly registered the mural with the Copyright Office in Argentina in November 2013, approximately one year after Gilliam’s film was shot.