Moratorium tenure reduced

Now, it will be only 3-week moratorium
Out-Of-Court Accord Resolves Film Crisis

Bangalore: After CET, it is the crisis over other language film releases which has got resolved with an “out-of-court’’ settlement.

Ten weeks after Karnataka’s film industry plunged into crisis over a seven-week moratorium on new other language releases, the warring sides on Wednesday agreed to a “gentleman’s formula’’. This follows last week’s Supreme Court interim stay on the seven-week moratorium which “lifted all impediments for screening of other language films in Karnataka.’’

As per the informal formula, which will be “on trial for one year, new Hindi, English, Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam films will be released in Karnataka three weeks after they are screened in the rest of the country. The number of prints will be limited to six (a maximum of 12 theatres) in the entire state.

Deputy CM Siddaramaiah, who chaired a threehour meeting of industry representatives here, told reporters: “Everyone has agreed to support the cause of Kannada. That has solved the problem.’’
He declined to elaborate further, stating: “There is a court order on this issue.’’

Both exhibitors and producers said they were “satisfied’’ with the formula hammered out at the meeting. “We could have gone ahead with other language film releases armed with the Supreme Court order. But the fear is always there that attacks like those on Cauvery and Abhinay theatres would be repeated and this will keep audiences away. As a fire-fighting exercise, we have agreed to what they suggested,’’ Karnataka Film Exhibitors’ Federation chairman R.P. Odugoudar told The Times of India.

In return, he claimed that exhibitors had been promised resumption of the Re 1 service tax per ticket sold, which used to be the norm over a year ago. Last year, the producers had agitated against this and had it removed in the teeth of opposition from exhibitors.

“The deputy CM has agreed to resumption of the service tax, though we have not yet worked out when. He also promised to look into our other demands,’’ Odugoudar said.

This issue, however, appears to be another flashpoint with the producers. A senior producer said: “We have reduced our demand from seven weeks to three. As far as we know, no promise of reintroducing service charge has been made.’’

Producers have also decided to exempt Chiranjeevi-starrer Shankardada MBBS, which has been released in Bellary and will hit Bangalore screens on Friday, under the new formula.