The Malayalam film industry, marred by a series of issues including criminal cases involving its members and frequent flops at the box office, is set to form a disciplinary action committee to check various elements that makes its survival difficult.
The common disciplinary panel will have members from different organisations in the industry. The decision was taken at a joint meeting of the organisations convened by the Kerala Film Chamber of Commerce (KFCC).
Representatives of the Association of Malayalam Movie Artists (AMMA), MACTA, FEFKA, FEUOK, distributors association and film exhibitors’ federation attended the meet in Kochi on Friday.
Each organisation has been asked to nominate its members to the disciplinary panel in a week.
The KFCC convened the meeting amid the ongoing loss-making trend in the industry. According to the collective, of the 77 Malayalam movies released in theatres this year, only seven made profits. Producers have been citing the high remuneration charged by actors as a major reason for the loss.
“Collection from theatres has been nosediving even as production costs keep going up. People in the industry have been least bothered about the regulations on production costs fixed earlier. It's high time we did something to stop this trend,” KFCC president G Suresh Kumar told Onmanorama.
He said the disciplinary committee will also check the drug menace in the industry. The KFCC will be convening a follow-up meeting with all the executive committee members of AMMA in the first week of August.
The KFCC has also decided to approach the Kerala High Court with a petition against widespread piracy of films facilitated through the Telegram app.
“Piracy through Telegram has come to such a level that we have no option but to move the court against it. The governments will do something only if the court intervenes in the issue,” Suresh Kumar said.
In a bid to limit the frequent flop of films in theatres, the association will request OTT platforms to stream films only after eight weeks of their release. The film body has decided to call the representatives of the streaming platforms for a meeting to discuss the proposal.
