Filmmaker Lily Perez has accused Chinneylove of plagiarising her film “A KRISTMAS TO LOVE”, claiming that the similarities point to a clear case of creative deficiency.
On Instagram, Perez highlighted multiple parallels between the two films, including the lead character’s name, storyline, and certain key scenes.
Chinneylove, however, defended her work, insisting that her film is entirely original, conceived from her own ideas and written on her bed. She added that any resemblance to Perez’s film was purely coincidental, asserting that she had never seen “A KRISTMAS TO LOVE” prior to making her own.
She wrote, “So our film , ‘A KRISTMAS TO LOVE’ came out on December 4, 2025 (My Birthday) and three weeks later another ‘Popular writer/producer’ (obviously creative deficient ) clearly stole our storyline and tweaked it, the disrespect to the viewers is just mind boggling … Please walk with me.
“My lead character’s name is KRISTMAS, guess what? This individual used the same name for their female lead (Christmas). When last did you hear someone named Christmas? Let’s continue….
“How do you go as far as copying my scene where my male lead pretends to be ill and gets fed pepper soup by his love interest? Guess what? This individual swapped things. This time it’s the female lead that’s ill and the male lead feeds her pepper soup. Come on!!!
“Same story line of a young man who hated Christmas but finds love along the way. While this theme isn’t new, as many romance themed movies, you can’t help but cringe at the lack of creativity in copying another writer’s work. I mean, if you are going to steal my work, be more creative. Were you hoping to get away with it because of your large YouTube subscribers? What was the plan?
“The fact that this individual also used the same male lead as mine even makes the whole thing ridiculous.
“I am a new entrant to the Nollywood film industry, but if this is how some of y’all roll, don’t bring it to my corridors. I AM NOT ONE TO BE PLAYED WITH!
“To my amazing FAVS , thank you for drawing my attention to it… and for stating the obvious in the comment section”.
Responding to her claims, Chinneylove explained that her actor brought up the similarity on the first day of filming, but she dismissed it, thinking it was just a typical rom-com similarity.
She stated that if she had bought the script or story idea from someone, she would have discussed it with the actor, but since it was her original idea, she didn’t see it as a concern.
Chinneylove replied, saying: “I Got an inspiration for a story , and on my bed I wrote the entire story… The entire story from Start to finish! Everything was 100percent my idea never had I seen a movie that inspired it…I did all my casting, did all my planning and we were ready to go
“On my way to set on that fateful day which was our Day 1 my actor called me as I was driving to set and said this script is quite very familiar with a movie I had shot earlier, My quick response as I was rushing was “it’s not same story” it can’t be the same..
“Reason been that I didn’t buy the script from anyone or the story idea from anyone! It was my original idea… If I had bought the script then it would have been of concern as I would have discussed it with the actor on set… so I assumed that it’s usually typical romcoms Similarites and went ahead to set!
“As I got on set I met with the actor, he didn’t bring it up on seeing me physically, I just went ahead to do my job! There was no conversations whatsoever of “oh this character name is same can we change” “oh the backstory is same can we change. As filmmakers we edit and even replot stories onset so tell me why I would choose to tell a story same way it was?
Use the same actor, use the same character name? Same backstory? Couldn’t I have changed all this and still tell my story….”.
“As a filmmaker even when we get inspirations from a movie the least you can do is change around a lot of things…I come up with stories so easily that if I was aware of a similar film I would have found another script or better still tweak it in a way that you won’t even lay any similarities to the previous one…If I was even told on set of some similarities I would have changed a lot of stuff…
“It’s so funny that this things happen and the next thing is “oh you have a bigger platform “ that’s why… why does it always have to be this way? Why do people just generally get drawn to people who always play the victims?
Remember there are different sides to every story! What if my film came out first? Would this still have been the situation?
“I have shot over 200films from start of my career never have I ever been caught in this…..”
