Federation proposes caution money, EIMPA yet to take a call

The turmoil in Tollywood continues. The representatives of the Federation of Cine Technicians & Workers of Eastern India and Eastern India Motion Pictures Association (EIMPA) called for a meeting when the former submitted three proposals that created debates across the entertainment industry.  

In their proposal, the Swarup Biswas-led Federation proposed that the number of technicians, etc will undergo consideration only when the budget of a film is less than Rs 30 lakh. Moreover, they proposed that the producers deposit Rs 5 lakh in advance before starting the project. This raised a lot of eyebrows in the industry.  

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Several stakeholders opposed such ideas. Producer-director Subrata Sen told us. “Often a film cannot recover Rs 5 lakh from hall collection. Why and how should a producer pay this money? There are occasions when certain films like Jhilli and Dostojee that are shot in clandestine mode – far from the strict rulebook of the Federation – made an impact in our film industry. Hence such restrictions make little sense to me.” 

Meanwhile, the Federation claimed that this caution money is a security deposit if a producer fails to clear dues to the technicians. Countering this, Subrata said, “To apply for a censor certificate, a producer must get a clearance from EIMPA and that can be obtained when all the dues are cleared. We already have that check in place.” 

Also read: Parambrata Chatterjee: The Federation seems to be autocratic, shouldn’t single out directors’ guild 

Filmmaker Indrasis Acharya said, “For big production houses, this Rs 5 lakh is nothing. It is difficult for the small and independent filmmakers.” 

However, EIMPA members dismissed the possibility of implementing the suggestion immediately. Ritabrata Bhattacharya, chairperson of the producer section, EIMPA, said, “We will not do anything that goes against the interest of the producers. Someone suggested something and we are yet to discuss it. In fact, we are not even sure if we would consider a discussion of the matter. Nothing is changing now.” 

Piya Sengupta of EIMPA clarified that it takes a lot of time to implement a change. “There is a legal team and our own team that will consider every move we make. Nothing happened as of now,” she said.