Filmmaker/writer Galt Niederhoffer has accused her former partner of plotting to poison her in court papers submitted as part of the former couple's custody battle over their two-year-old son.

Niederhoffer, who has produced films including Robot & Frank, After.Life and The Romantics, which was based on her novel of the same name, is currently locked in an ugly court battle with her former partner Jonathan Gordon.

The former couple is warring over custody of their son, and Niederhoffer has filed court papers in which she alleges lawyer Gordon, 40, attempted to kill her by lacing her food with arsenic.

In the documents, which were filed with a court in Brooklyn, New York, and obtained by the New York Daily News, Niederhoffer, 38, alleges tests also found "high levels of arsenic" in her blood.

As part of her custody battle she has included affidavits from friends including movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, who calls her "a loving and devoted mother".

Niederhoffer lost custody of her little boy last month (Jan15) and is fighting to get him back.

Her novel A Taxonomy of Barnacles is set to become a new film starring Alan Rickman, Katie Holmes, Evan Rachel Wood and Zosia Mamet.