The suit claims that Kerkove entered an exclusive agreement to direct a film for Ducati Productions and, after finishing the project, sold one of the scenes to a third party. The action also alleges that Kerkove included a “bonus scene” in the movie which was owned by a third party and failed to obtain a release granting permission to use it.
“The contract called for us to purchase a movie for our new series, ‘Welcome to the Bung Hole,’” Ducati told XBIZ. “Through reading some stuff on the Internet I became aware that one of the scenes may have been sold to another company. In meetings with that company, we discovered that not only did he sell one of my exclusive scenes to them, he included as a bonus at least one of their scenes.”
Ducati alleges that his meeting with the third party company turned up forged model releases bearing Kerkove’s wife’s name and learned that she had been the contract director with that firm.
The suit also claims Kerkove turned in substandard work on the second movie he shot for Ducati and also failed to cast the performers he was contracted to hire.
“The quality was so poor that it was a disaster,” Ducati said. “We got record returns on that [movie] and it’s the only movie we ever lost money on.”
Damages sought by Ducati have not yet been specified, although the complaint asks that it be “in an amount to be determined at the trial, plus lawful interest thereon.”
Kerkove was unavailable for comment at post time.
