KOLKATA
Controversy broke out in the Bengali film industry on Saturday, with technicians refusing to attend the shoot of an upcoming film by director Rahool Mukherjee in Kolkata citing violations of prior agreements and sparking outrage among the community of Bengali film directors against stringent restrictions of the cine workers’ federation.
On Saturday morning, chaos broke out at the Technicians’ Studio where the actors of the film, like Prasenjit Chatterjee and Dev along with Mr. Mukherjee, had arrived on set for the film’s first day of shoot, but no technician was present.
This comes a day after the Directors’ Guild lifted an earlier ban on Mr. Mukherjee, in connection with him allegedly filming parts of Lahu in Bangladesh, a production registered with the Eastern India Motion Pictures Association (EIMPA), using technicians from that country. This move allegedly violated the norms of the EIMPA and Federation of Cine Technicians’ Workers of Eastern India (FCTWEI).
After Mr. Mukherjee was suspended from working by the Directors’ Guild, film production company SVF Entertainment redelegated Mr. Mukherjee as the film’s creative producer and assigned Soumik Halder as the new director. Mr. Mukherjee is still under a three-month ban imposed by the FCTWEI.
“Technicians are eager to work on this film, but not when Mr. Mukherjee is on the floor as the film’s director. That was the case when technicians reached the set this morning, which is why they walked out,” FCTWEI spokesperson Sujit Kumar Hazra said on Saturday.
Film technicians affiliated with the FCTWEI accused Mr. Mukherjee of depriving local talent by not hiring the requisite number of local technicians for his shoot in Bangladesh, as stipulated in the rules of the EIMPA. “When we received the call sheet for the shoot this morning, it said Rahool Mukherjee is the director. We will not work on the film if that is the case because that is a violation of what was agreed upon,” Anadi Sahu, a technician said on Saturday.
“Technicians will resume work without disruptions when Soumik Halder is present on set as the director. In case of any other issues, the Federation is willing to conduct dialogue with directors to resolve them,” FCTWEI president Swaroop Biswas told reporters on Saturday, adding that any changes to the agreement with SVF regarding the shooting of the given film will only happen through an emergency general meeting.
“I am working very hard to make this film, and I want to make it in peace,” Mr. Mukherjee said on Saturday.
Several renowned Bengali film directors, like Raj Chakraborty, Srijit Mukherjee, Sudeshna Roy, Kaushik Ganguly and others gathered at the Technicians’ Studio on Saturday morning in support of Mr. Mukherjee, accusing the FCTWEI of strongarming them with stringent rules and contributing to the decaying condition of the film industry.
“Are they implying that a shoot can take place without a director? We are giving two days for the Federation to reconsider their decision, after which directors will boycott shoots from Monday,” film director and Trinamool Congress MLA Raj Chakraborty said on Saturday. “If directors are not present on the shooting floor, can the shoot take place?”
He added that the technicians’ boycott of the shoot on Saturday is a direct insult to all film directors.
“Halting the shoot without reason today is very unfortunate, especially when work in the Bengali film industry has already dwindled. 90% of the work that used to happen in the Bengali film industry earlier does not happen anymore,” actor and Trinamool Congress MP Dev said. He also emphasised that the directors’ outrage against the technicians’ boycott is “not politically coloured.”
He is one of the lead actors in the film that was to be shot in the studio today. Another lead actor of the film, Prasenjit Chatterjee, appealed for a resolution to the issue out of love for filmmaking. “We are all emotional people. We cannot create if we do not love and respect each other,” Mr. Chatterjee said.
Renowned Bengali actor and director Parambrata Chatterjee claimed that such stringent rules exist not in any other film industry in India but in Bengal. “Because of the Federation’s rules, Bengal is the only place where producers are forced to hire more technicians than we require,” he said.
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