While the permission for post-production work by the Kerala government in Covid-19 green zones comes as a temporary relief, Kerala Film Producers Association (KFPA) general secretary
Anto Joseph says that the bigger issue confronting the industry is the uncertainty of the release of films.
“We have 49 movies that are shot and ready, and you need at least four months to release the movies. Say hypothetically, theatres can open in August, only smaller movies would release then because the bigger movies will wait further till overseas markets such as Middle East open,” he says, adding any project that would go on floors now will get a release date only after the pending films hit theatres.
As for Malayalam movies looking at digital or direct-to-TV release, Anto Joseph says, “You need to censor movies for that and currently only
Marakkar
: Arabikadalinte Simham and Kilometers and Kilometers are censored. So, there are a lot of issues and we can tackle those only when we know for sure when the theatres will start functioning.”
In terms of loss sustained to the film industry during this period, KFPA official Suresh Kumar tells us, "In Kerala we have 625 theatres and considering that each theatre sells at least a total of 100 tickets in five shows together, we get 62,500 tickets. Now, if each ticket would cost us Rs 100 on an average, that's Rs 62.5 lakh of revenue per day that is lost due to the theatres being shut down from March 11 this year."
Start a Conversation
Post comment