The unthinkable happened with Prosenjit Chatterjee on July 27. The actor, one of modern Bengali cinema’s stars, left without shooting after a long wait for technicians to turn up at a film studio in south Kolkata’s Tollygunge.
Celebrated Bengali movie director Rahool Mukherjee faced a similar situation at Technicians’ Studio, among the oldest in eastern India. Mukherjee knew he was the primary reason behind the studio lockout that saw 50-60 people protest. The Federation of Cine Technicians’ Workers of Eastern India (FCTWEI) had banned him from the Bengali film industry — casually called Tollywood — for three months for violating its norms during the filming of the Bangladeshi series, Lohu. The ban was lifted after Mukherjee apologised in writing.
The federation’s first condition was that all Bengal-based filmmakers take local technicians to shoots outside West Bengal, in India or abroad. The second was that directors from outside Bengal hire technicians locally if they shoot in the State. The justification was that these conditions would help sustain technicians as the Bengali film industry offers very little work these days. Film producers and directors complained that the conditions compelled them to hire certain technicians they do not need and pay them just to avoid being banned by the federation.
Matters came to a head when some producers and directors defied the federation’s diktat, leading to the studio lockout. Almost a week of uncertainty ended when Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee intervened, and the shooting of films resumed on July 31. “From directors to light boys and sound recordists and hairdressers and spot boys — all stakeholders will henceforth act in cohesion, leaving no room for conflict or misunderstanding,” veteran director Goutam Ghose said after meeting the Chief Minister.
But the impasse left a bitter taste in the mouths of many involved with the industry. “I am trying to make a film through a lot of hardship. I should be allowed to shoot the film peacefully,” Mukherjee says.
“Halting shooting without reason is unfortunate, especially when 90% of the work in the film industry has dwindled,” says actor and Trinamool Congress MP Dev, insisting that the technicians’ boycott was not politically motivated. Renowned filmmakers and actors such as Raj Chakraborty, Srijit Mukherjee, and Kaushik Ganguly feel the deadlock could have been avoided.
Krishna Narayan Daga, former president of the Eastern India Motion Pictures Association (EIMPA) and owner of the production company Daga Films, says producers are losing interest in making movies because of the federation’s strict conditions. “The rules make it mandatory for us to hire women make-up artists even if there is no woman actor in a movie,” he says.
“Only in Bengal are producers forced to hire more technicians than they require,” actor-director Parambrata Chakraborty says.
FCTWEI president Swarup Biswas rejects the allegation that the federation’s conditions are unfair. “There is an understanding across the country that an outstation unit shooting in Bengal should employ 30% of the technicians from among our members (over 4,000),” he says.
The complexity within
Some technicians say filmmakers complain about expenditure without paying them their due. “Technicians hardly make ₹1,000-₹1,500 a day after working double shifts,” says Soumya Barik, a cinematographer who moved out of the Bengali film industry after a decade. He says technicians do not get the respect for the hard work they put in.
“A movie is not only about the director and the actors. The blood and sweat of the technicians give life to the films,” he says. The treatment meted out to technicians often leads to turmoil and dissatisfaction within the industry, adds the cinematographer, who had three of his films — Katti Nrittam, Jharokh, and Miss Khan Ab Toh Hans Do — archived at the Margaret Herrick Library in California, the U.S.
Actors, directors, and producers say respect has to be earned, not demanded. They feel that the tendency of technicians to operate like a syndicate and impose rules on the industry makes it difficult to put them on a pedestal.
“The rules are like a disease that keeps coming back. It is time to get to the root of the issue, administer the right medicines, take a break if needed, and get back to work healthy,” actor Anirban Chatterjee says.
“A committee will be formed to change the federation’s rules and make work smoother and more practical for all stakeholders,” Dev says.
Hiring of technicians, who fear for their future, is not the only problem the Bengali film industry is facing. It is hamstrung by single-screen cinema halls shutting down and an output perceived to be low on quality.
Fewer single screens
Most Bengalis in Kolkata who watched Piku, the Shoojit Sircar-directed Hindi comedy-drama set in New Delhi’s Chittaranjan Park, related to what lead actor Deepika Padukone said in one of the scenes: “There used to be a cinema hall here. Now there is some building.” It was as if Padukone’s character referred to Madhuban or Pushpashree, cinema halls in south Kolkata that fell into disuse by the time the film was released in 2015. Since then, a banyan tree sticking out of Madhuban’s facade has grown bigger and the structure — the paint on its walls peeled off long ago — has become mustier.
Pushpashree wears the look of a haunted house, with stray dogs occupying the creaking seats film lovers once queued up for at the now-crumbling ticket counter outside.
An usher who worked here, but does not want to be named as he does menial jobs now, says, “I used to take pride in watching all the movies for free, because of my job.”
“Movies were celebrated across more than 750 cinema halls in West Bengal. There are hardly 170 single screens left in the State today,” Piya Sengupta, president of the EIMPA, says.
Most of the cinema halls that shut down over the years were iconic for Bengalis. They include Roxy, Lighthouse, Globe, Paradise, and Elite in central Kolkata; and Malancha, Ellora, and Purna, apart from Madhuban and Pushpashree, in the southern part of the city. The ones that continue to operate are struggling to acquire a fire licence, marking them safe for people in places prone to fire hazards. “Many old theatre owners have failed to get the licence despite several letters and applications to the government from the EIMPA,” Sengupta says.
Sunit Singh, the owner of Paradise on Bentinck Street, lost his business and passion for movies during the lockdown imposed following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. But the rot had set in earlier. “The virus was the last nail in the coffin for most single-screen owners. How will halls run when tons of horrible movies are being made?” he says. He sees no chance of revival for his ‘dead’ theatre because people find it more convenient to watch films on television or mobile phones these days.
Many single screens have been converted into marriage halls and shopping centres almost everywhere across the country, but the owners of the properties in Kolkata say the attachment of film lovers to the city’s movie theatres used to be at a different level.
Struggle for inspiration
In Jukti, Tokko aar Goppo (Reason, Debate, and Story), an iconic film by Ritwik Ghatak, one of the characters says, “Bhabo, bhaba practise koro (Think, practise thinking)!”
Bengali filmmakers and actors admit that the quality of the craft has taken a hit because the cinematography of the current crop of films is often unimaginative and the script uninspiring.
Actor Deboprasad Halder, who starred in box-office hits such as Baishe Srabon and Bilu Rakkhosh, says, “We have reached a saturation point with the type of content we are making here. We need to make way for new talent and new stories. Without involving the youth, we will never find new ideas.” He says internal politics has inflicted pain on the industry and is taking a toll.
Senior actor Paran Bandhopadhyay, who has been in the industry for several decades, says, “Now it is more about business than the art of filmmaking. Producers want a movie to be completed in 15 days. It is not possible to ensure quality like this.” He laments that the technology-driven robotic approach to making films and OTT series is robbing the sets of fun too.
“Producers are not trusting new stories. Now we do remakes of south Indian movies; they are not our originals. These are mostly thrillers and detective stories that do not belong to our land. The biggest hits here are now generic formula movies,” says actor Judhajit Sarkar, who has starred in movies such as Tasher Ghawr (House of Cards) and Dracula Sir.
Director Tathagata Banerjee agrees. He says producers mostly bank on adaptations or remakes of popular Tamil films to make money. Cinematographer Arindam Bhattacharjee finds no problem with repackaging Tamil or Telugu films for a Bengali audience if they help sustain the industry. “Cinema is a language in itself. Bengali or Tamil does not matter,” he says, bemoaning the “unfortunate” fact that films with the local flavour no longer draw people to the theatres like those of Satyajit Ray and Ghatak used to.
It was common for Bengali families to watch the same movie five times with five different groups if the content was gripping, as most films starring greats such as Chhabi Biswas, Uttam Kumar, Soumitra Chatterjee, Suchitra Sen, and Supriya Devi were. “I have watched Ray’s Hirak Rajar Deshe at least eight times in different theatres,” movie buff Aditya Bose says, lamenting the “unrelatable stories” dished out by Tollywood today.
Dwindling business
Producer K.K. Gupta of J.M. Films says it is becoming increasingly hard to make money from the once-bankable Bengali movie industry. A major stumbling block is the State government’s reluctance to subsidise production expenditure unlike at least a dozen other States, he says.
Assam’s Tourism Policy of 2017, for instance, entails a cash incentive of 25% of the qualified production expenditure or ₹1 crore, whichever is less, per film, depending on the budgetary provision for the year.
Daga says producers are unable to get back the money invested in a film and the GST of 18% on tickets is making things worse. “All categories of people view regional cinema and most of them cannot afford to spend ₹500 to watch a movie at a multiplex. Cheaper, low-taxed tickets can help sustain the industry that is struggling to stay afloat,” he says.
Madhuja Mukherjee, professor of Film Studies at Jadavpur University, says the Bengali film industry has faced crises in the past too. It fought its way back from a slump after mahanayak (great actor) Uttam Kumar’s death in July 1980. “Relying on remakes of Tamil films and generic detective stories will not help. We have to take risks with new stories. All good movies in the world have been made by taking risks, but this industry seems to be stuck in cliches,” she says.
A few in the industry agree that it would be worth taking risks but only if all stakeholders work in synchronicity, without waving a set of rigid rules that strains a film project’s budget.
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