The stalemate between Telugu film producers and the Telugu Film Industry Employees Federation (TFIEF) continued into its second week, with film shoots coming to a halt. The tussle started with the TFIEF demanding a 30% improve in wages.
The TFIEF and unions of the totally different crafts, starting from stunt to make-up and different departments, justified their demand for a wage hike, citing the rising manufacturing prices of movies that vie for nationwide field workplace and main actors and administrators drawing a price of a number of crores.
Meanwhile, producers have acknowledged that other than a handful of all-India hits, a number of movies have failed on the field workplace. They additionally level out how unions cost a hefty membership price and cite guidelines that compel producers to rent extra crew members than vital, thereby escalating manufacturing prices.
With the continued strike, the business is observing the potential of inevitable delays of movies presently beneath manufacturing.
On Monday afternoon, a couple of producers of small and medium price range movies offered their arguments at a media interplay at Prasad Labs Preview Theatre, Hyderabad. The meet witnessed the participation of producers Sreenivas Kumar Naidu aka SKN, Dheeraj Mogilineni, Rajesh Danda, Chaitanya, Shivalanka Krishna Prasad, Bekkem Venugopal, Sharath and Anurag, Madhura Sreedhar, Maheshwar Reddy, Vamsi Nandipati, Harshith Reddy and Rakesh Varre.
“Approximately 250 Telugu films release each year, of which less than 50 have a budget exceeding ₹100 crore. Most producers work with smaller budgets,” mentioned SKN, who produced the blockbuster film Baby. “Producers are not cash bags,” he added.
These arguments got here within the context of allegations that unions have been forcing producers to rent a number of crew members than required for a film shoot. Madhura Sreedhar defined, “For example, if we have to film a conversation between two actors in a room, we require a few lights, cameras and a small crew. Due to the rules laid out by the unions, members of each craft bring in several assistants. For a small scene, we end up hiring 80 crew members.”
His statements had been echoed by different producers. Rakesh Varre, who produced the small-budget, sleeper hit Pekamedalu, identified how he produced his debut film Evvariki Cheppoddu inside ₹1.5 crore. He saved his manufacturing low key and didn’t rent union members. For his second film Pekamedalu, he needed to rope in a number of crew members with union playing cards.
“The film’s budget went up to ₹2.5 crore,” he mentioned, and added that the parable of producers and actors making tidy sums doesn’t maintain good for smaller groups. “There is no guarantee that we will get profits through theatrical release or digital rights. OTT platforms do not pick up films unless there are well known actors.”
