Kollywood's No-Show Blues

A stand-off between producers and digital service providers keeps Tamil movies off the theatres

- G.C. Shekhar

If your job is reviewing Tamil movies, it’s time to take a holiday. If you are a theatre owner in Tamil Nadu, try to replay some old Tamil hits. If that fails to bring in the footfalls, shut shop and wait for a new release.

Yes, entertainment-hungry Tamil Nadu has been starved of new Tamil films since March 1 after Tamil film producers stopped releasing new movies, complaining that the digital service providers (DSPs) refused to scale down their virtual print fee (VPF) to the desired level. “We have paid up to Rs 27,500 as VPF per movie for more than a decade and we dec­ided to correct that mistake now,” claims S.R. Prabhu, treasurer of the Tamil Film Producers’ Council. While the producers allege that the DSPs are overcharging, the service providers counter that technology costs money.

The ‘no new release’ diktat initially ­included all south Indian language films, but producers of Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada movies broke ranks after the two major DSPs—Qube Cinema and UFO—lowered the VPF for all four languages. “We had some big releases for Ugadi and did not want to lose out on the audience and revenue, so we took the practical way out,” admits Telugu film producer Suresh Babu.

With Rajnikanth’s Kaala slated for an April release, when school holidays begin, the pressure on Tamil producers to break the logjam would only increase. And yet the producers led by Vishal Reddy have refused to climb down. “Even if a few producers choose to release their movies, the majority of us will stick together,” Vishal asserts. That’s easier said than done as producers would want to recover their costs, having paid huge interests to financiers to fund their movies.