The most important attraction of the holiday season is that you get to spend valuable time with our loved ones – having good food and watching newly released movies in theaters with families and friends complete the package for many of us. Little did my brother and sister knew (who came from Bengaluru for the vacation) about the theater strike in Kerala. They were ready with the list of movies to watch this Christmas, but the news of no new Malayalam releases and indefinite strike hampered their happy plan.
This could be the first time in the history of Malayalam film industry that no new movies were released during a holiday season, a time during which producers usually make huge profits, and on top of it, the running movies were also pulled out from theaters. The Christmas-New Year season has worked wonders for Malayalam cinema; take the examples of previous years’ hits like Drishyam, Charlie, Two Countries – they earned their maximum collection in the winter vacation time.
The laymen and movie lovers are disappointed and they want to know – why can’t the strike be called off? The month of December turned out to be highly annoying for filmmakers whose movies are ready for release but were hit with the strike.
Director Jibu Jacob, who planned his movie Munthirivallikal Thalirkkumbol to be released in December, asks with a heavy heart, “Who do we talk to; who will listen to us?''
“Filmmakers like us aim at family audiences and school vacation days. For me, December 22 was not just a release date for my film Munthirivallikal Thalirkkumbol. I was waiting for it for the past two years. For theater owners, the cinema halls could just be business and for people like us, cinema is the way of life. Whose stubbornness is behind all this? Something must be done as soon as possible, we have suffered a huge loss already,” Jibu Jacob told Onmanorama. The Malayalam film industry has reportedly sustained a loss of about Rs 12 crore so far due to the stalling of new releases.
A recent meeting, chaired by Kerala cinema minister A.K. Balan, failed to solve the ongoing strike. For the unknown, the Malayalam Film Producers Council and Distributors Association are fighting a battle with the Kerala Film Exhibitors Federation (KFEF), the theater owners, over splitting of revenue from movies. The KFEF has been demanding an equal share of the box-office collection. Their argument is that single-screen owners now have to pay 60 percent to distributors and producers during the first week of a new release while multiplexes get to keep 50 percent of the share. According to reports, theater owners stuck to their demand of 50-50 revenue share of box-office collections, while producers and distributors remained opposed to it. After the meeting failed to come at a solution, the minister suggested that a judicial commission be set up to look into the conflict and the idea was reportedly agreed by everyone involved.
As a solution to the issue, filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan says a cinema regulatory authority should be formed. Blaming the theater owners over the crisis, Adoor said, “They have no responsibility towards cinema. They won’t get affected whatever happens to the Malayalam film industry. If not Malayalam, they would go for Tamil movies. They have no commitments to our own cinema. They have caused huge damage to the industry and something needs to be done.”
Meanwhile, non-Malayalam films, including Aamir Khan's Dangal, have been receiving good response in Kerala, thanks to the holiday season. The Bollywood film, which released on about 100 screens across the state, has already collected more than Rs 1 crore at multiplexes in Kochi and became the fastest film to make that much money in Kerala, beating earlier records set by Kabali and Sultan.
“It is holiday season and definitely we would love to go watch movies in theaters with family. And since there is no single Malayalam movie, viewers like us will go ahead and watch the movies that are running. It's a good thing that a Bollywood movie is breaking records but the saddening part is that Dangal is taking what Malayalam movies could have taken,” said Reshma, a college student.
Meanwhile, director Sathyan Anthikad, whose Jomonte Suvisheshangal was set to hit the screens in December, stated that it is the right of the viewers to watch expected releases. “Government should intervene to make sure that no festival season should face such a crisis again. Cinema is not just about money but is an art. So, the government should make an attempt to ban such strikes during the festival season,” he said.
However, Liberty Basheer, president of Kerala Film Exhibitors Federation, slammed the producers stating they are the ones going ahead with the strike. “How do producers suffer loss when they are earning big bucks at box-office? We are always willing for a compromise. We are ready to release when they cooperate with us'', said Basheer.
Well, with the situation at hand, we rest our case with these questions:
1. Is the sudden demand by exhibitors purely a consequence of Pulimurugan making it to the 100 crore club?
2. Are exhibitors already getting the lion's share and asking for more?
3. Do theaters in Kerala have proper facilities?
4. Cinema is a team effort that sees hundreds of people working together; is strike the only way to resolve the dispute?