Exhibitors screen many burning issues
No sooner the particular exhibitor took over the stage, he began to address the gathering in Telugu, much to the chagrin of others. Some of them unable to understand the language, that was palpable on their faces, thought of interrupting, when he (exhibitor) switched over to Kannada. What prompted him to speak in Telugu was- the current trend.
The quality of movies churned out in Tollywood (as Telugu film industry is called as), Tamil, Hindi and English is far ahead compare to other regional languages, he said narrating some incidents that sent audience into peels of laughter.
The occasion was Karnataka Film Exhibitors Federation meeting that was attended by theatre owners from Mysore, Mandya, Chamarajanagar and Hassan districts, at Rotary Hall here on Tuesday.
An exhibitor from Chintamani in Kolar district, bordering Andhra Pradesh, said ‘he is popular as Vatal Nagaraj of that region. The reason being, he screens Kannada movies and also insists fellow exhibitors to do so’. However, of late, screening has become a hefty affair, with none of the Kannada movies drawing audience towards cinema halls, leaving the owners in conundrum. Once he had to screen the movie for handful of audience, that brought him a measly ` 18 in the form of sale of tickets.
When this is the poor state of the exhibitors, the government doesn’t want to encourage, rather harass them (cinema hall owners) imposing taxes.
Renewal
For renewal of license alone, the owners pay in lakhs per annum, apart from the maintenance cost that runs up to another few lakhs.
President of the federation Odu Gowdar told media that the government has to create a category of semi-permanent theatres (existing in the area having population less than 50,000) encouraging them with any number of exemptions.
In the existing scenario, the semi-permanent theatres have to renew the license once in a year. It can be extended up to three years. If it happens, ‘A’ category theatres (cities) can survive.
He strongly opposed the slab of 24 prints imposed on other language films by Karnataka Film Chamber of Commerce (KFCC). When Bangalore alone gets a lion share of 18 prints, how can you expect other regions to be satisfied with the remaining prints?, he questioned. The issue of restricting exhibitors to screen Kannada movies only is also absurd, as KFCC is playing with the sentiment, instead of arresting the closure of theatres and reasons behind it.
“The exhibitors are still ready to accord priority to Kannada films over other languages. But, not at the cost of nailing our own coffin, as the film chamber is not making any honest efforts to protect the interest of the exhibitors”, charged Odu Gowdar.
Mysore City Film Exhibitors Association President Ajith Kumar, Secretary M R Rajaram, Balu Joshi and Umesh Karanth of the federation and others were present.