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The Tamil and Telugu film industries have gone on an indefinite strike starting Thursday 1 March, protesting against Digital Services Providers (DSPs) related to their pricing.
This, after the differences between the south Indian film industries and Digital Service Providers (DSPs) were not resolved, despite three rounds of talks in the past few weeks.
While the Tamil and Telugu film industries will see an indefinite shutdown, two of the other industries - Malayalam and Kannada - will see a one-day shutdown.
According to the four film industries, the DSPs who deliver content straight to theatres via satellite for digital projection, charge rates that are too high. DSPs such as Qube and UFO, are believed to charge around Rs 22,500 per screen for digital projection. This includes the cost of hiring and delivery of content via digital distribution in theatres.
However, speaking to The Hindu, Senthil Kumar, co-founder of Qube Cinema, a leading DSP, said:
He adds, “These are all considerable costs in the rest of the world. Finally, the digital cinema release costs here are between 0.3 percent to 1.7 percent of a movie’s total costs, so to suggest that these are draining the industry’s profits is preposterous.”
Representatives of both Malayalam and Kannada film industries have confirmed to TNM that the theatres in both the states will be open after observing a one-day shut down. While theatres in Karnataka are shut on Thursday, theatres in Kerala will close down on March 2 as a solidarity to the larger strike.
So while a strike against the DSPs has been kick-started under the Joint Action Committee of the Southern Indian Film Industry, why have these two industries decided not to go ahead with a prolonged strike?
Speaking to The News Minute, S R Govindu of the Karnataka Film Chamber said:
Malayalam producer Renjith, who is part of the producers' association, says that the one-day strike on March 2 will be conducted to express solidarity with the larger strike.
However, sources point out that the Malayalam film industry cannot afford to go into an indefinite strike at this point, considering that the industry had faced a near total shut-down a few months ago.
Last year had seen one of the biggest fall-outs between the producers' association and the film exhibitors' association headed by Liberty Basheer, with the release of new films stalled for weeks together. The strike began with the exhibitors' demand that the revenue share must be upped to 50-50.
While it its being reported is that the representatives of the Malayalam film industry want the crisis to be resolved amicably, Liberty Basheer criticised the move.
He pointed out that there are no major releases scheduled on Friday 2 March, and that the two films that were supposed to be released on Friday have been postponed to a later date.
(This article was first published on The News Minute and has been republished with permission.)
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