Special permission to Vijay 62 shoot during strike creates controversy!

As we all know the south Indian film industry is on a strike. Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam industries are on a total shutdown since March 1st.

It has been so dry with no new movie releases! And all activities in the industry including movie shoots have been cancelled due to the strike.

The four film industries have started this strike since they are discontented with the high pricing of the Virtual Print facilities provided by the Digital Service Providers like Qube or UFO.

Both the producers of the film industry and the Digital Service Providers have their own fair points.

This on one hand, while all film-related activities are put on hold during the strike, shooting of Vijay’s film took place!

And this has created quite some controversy. It is said that under “exceptional conditions”, if the director issues a letter seeking permission to carry out the shoot, the same can be considered.

It is said that the stunt men and the choreographers don’t have the dates for the next two months if this schedule is missed. Hence, this would result in a huge loss for the producers.

It is said that this valid reason had been put forward seeking permission to continue the shoot for a few days until the stunt sequences are over.

The news went viral on social media and has attracted a lot of controversy.

Popular producer, actor and director Manobala has raised his voice on the issue and has asked how long will it take for all the producers to prepare a request letter and submit the same and seek permission to continue with the shoot?

He also commented that there is no unity in the industry!

But the exemption is not given only to Vijay’s film shoot.

Samuthirakani’s Naadodigal 2 is also given special permission to shoot on a genuine reason that there was only 2 days of shoot left to wrap up the whole project!

Along with these two movies, Kannum Kannum Kollaiyadithaal, and another untitled movies have also been given special permission to shoot.

Actor Siddharth too took it to Twitter to register his opinion on the issue. His tweet read:

“Every single film is an equal challenge in today’s brutal cinema marketplace. If these special permissions to shoot are given to one, please give them to all producers. We are all the same. In the absence of equality and unity, god save us. #TamilCinema #Strike”

Every single film is an equal challenge in today’s brutal cinema marketplace. If these special permissions to shoot are given to one, please give them to all producers. We are all the same. In the absence of equality and unity, god save us. #TamilCinema #Strike

— Siddharth (@Actor_Siddharth) March 21, 2018

The tweet resulted in many angry responses of course!

Here’s the clarification given by SS Durairaj, the Secretary of TFPC regarding this issue:

We had planned to stop all Tamil film shootings from March 16 in Tamil Nadu and from March 23 in other states. However, we decided to give special permission for two or three days to film crews which had constructed sets at huge cost and those on the verge of completing a schedule. But only if the makers submitted a formal plea and the council found it satisfactory.

All the shootings were stopped on 16th and a few of the above-mentioned projects were resumed only after getting approval from the producers council. As for the Sun Pictures issue, the makers of Vijay 62 have roped in stunt masters and about 30 percent of the fighters from Hyderabad for the stunt sequence in Vijay 62. If they had halted the shooting now they would have had to wait for two more months to get their dates and the production house would consequently incur a huge loss. So we gave them permission.

The four producers had requested special permission to continue their shoots till the 23rd. Sun Pictures had apparently asked to shoot a fight sequence for Vijay 62 in Chennai, while Samuthirakani had requested permission to shoot in Madurai for Naadodigal 2. The council is also currently discussing about giving permission to a production house named 18th cross pictures to shoot in ECR as they have constructed a huge set there. Apart from this, a producer named Anto Joseph had requested permission to shoot for one day in Delhi.

Nevertheless, this reply has not convinced many producers in the industry!

Actor SarathKumar has released an audio response to that of SS Durairaj. In that audio, he points out that everyone might have their own fair reasons to continue the shoot and that this cannot be accepted.

He also added that, if giving special permissions to shoot continues, the council could rather stop all the post productions while allowing all the shoots.

This way, the movie projects cannot be completed, while losses due to shootings put on hold can be avoided!