Did this film flout rules?

For every rule, there’s also a rule breaker. Only last year, London came to Kolkata after the unit of

Chaalbaaz

— including Subhashree and Shakib Khan — was sent packing from the British capital. The brouhaha raised by the Federation of Cine Technicians and Workers of Eastern India was over hiring an “inadequate” number of technicians. Back then, the MoU between the big dadas of the film industry — Federation and Eastern India Motion Pictures Association — had expired and there was room for the producers to fight it out. Since then, a lot of water has flown under the Thames and Hooghly, but Tollywood has stuck to its rules. Across film industries, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) allows producers to hire technicians as per requirement, but our Federation and EIMPA have now struck a different deal. If 19 technicians were mandatory before, now, it’s a must to take along three less! Even then, not everyone seems to be following the dictum. Recently, when Debapratim Dasgupta aka Taju — one of TV’s brightest names — travelled to

Los Angeles

with actors like Rahul, Rrishii Kaushik, Anindya Chatterjee and others for his untitled film, and confirmed the news on Facebook, Tolly’s new rulebook went out of the window. It is heard that the team did not even negotiate with the umbrella bodies for technicians, lest the rowdy Federation chiefs withdraw their men.

Rumour has it, they went on to hire foreign technicians to shoot the film, which is funded by an NRI. Films that don’t follow these rules are allowed a commercial release. Let's wait and see if Debapratim, a popular scriptwriter, has written something nice to mollify the Federation. Rules are meant to be broken anyway!