Telugu film shoots suspended; producers call for industry restructuring

Hyderabad: Telugu producers have decided to suspend all the film shoots from August 1. President of Telugu Film Chamber Basi Reddy said that there are problems for everyone and the shootings will be stopped until the issues are solved. Producer Dil Raju said that the shootings of the ongoing films will also be stopped. He said that this decision will continue until a solution to the problems is found.

For the last few days, there has been a lot of friction in the industry. Producers said the increase in the cost of the production, hike in the remunerations of actors, mounting losses, recurrent flops, and OTT have become nothing but a bane for Tollywood.

A couple of weeks ago, a meeting with the producers guild was held to decide on halting film shoots. After a lot of discussions, it was decided all film shoots will be suspended from today. This decision is going to impact a lot of people and producers expect their collective decisions will make things better.

Some of the demands include:

1. Virtual Print Fee (VPF). Efforts should be made that no producer has to pay VPF to digital providers.

2. Small-budgeted movies should be released on a percentage basis (producer and distributor will take a share in profits/revenue on the agreed model).

3. Ticket rates should be rationalized for small and medium-budgeted movies.

4. Daily wages for cine workers should be amended

5. Streamlining of releases and release dates

6. A 6 or 10-week gap between theatrical release and OTT premiere.

Meanwhile, this is not going to have any impact on the releases happening this week.