Tollywood faces October revolution - TeluguPeople.com News

Hyderabad: After the South Indian Film Chamber of Commerce (SIFCC) and the Film Employees' Federation of South India (FEFSI) failed to reach a consensus with regard to the wage hike of cine workers, at a meeting, held in Chennai on Sunday, the producers of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka film industries were requested by the SIFCC to wrap up the shooting of their ongoing movies by October-end.

And the protest has put a halt, though momentarily, to a handful of films from rolling despite getting launched and the list included both small and big-budget flicks.

Even if the strike has not impacted Tollywood till date, the coming 10 days would be dramatic, say many of the technicians. Commenting on the same, producer and president of AP Film Chamber of Commerce (APFCC) Dagguabti Suresh Babu said, 'We've arrived at a point where film-making is becoming unfeasible and the wage issue is only one of the numerous roadblocks that the industry is encountering. Unless we start resolving somewhere, we're to go nowhere.'

The producer affirms that the FEFSI's demand is not justified, keeping in view the losses that the Tollywood has incurred in the recent past. While the two groups have been negotiating for the last two months as regards wage hike, the Telugu film industry recently is hit badly by the strike that the cine workers launched. The protest dragged on for 45 days in two schedules for the same reason, of course.

Fearing that a delay in production would only cost a bomb for them, the film-makers here have even increased the employees' pay by 30 per cent, which only drew the wrath from their counterparts in Tamil Nadu. It was 28 per cent in the case of Sandalwood.

As part of the dialogue, the demand that the workers of Telugu and Tamil industries be paid more and those of Kannada and Malayalam be paid less is also taken into consideration by the South Indian Film Chamber. These two categories cropped up because Andhra and Tamil Nadu mostly produce big-budget films.

Sharing his thoughts, president of AP Film Industry Employees' Federation Kotagiri Venkateswara Rao hoped that the ongoing talks will result in an amicable settlement, leading to rapprochement between two sides.

He, however, warned against stalling works if the AP Film Chamber of Commerce (APFCC) fails to make an official agreement with the employees by honoring the SIFCC's resolution. For now, the movie workers agreed to partake in the shootings till the deadline (October-end) set by the SIFCC.

This undoubtedly will halt a handful of big projects including Ram Charan's 'Rachcha', Mahesh Babu's 'The Businessman', Prabhas' 'Rebel', Pawan Kalyan's 'Gabbar Singh', Siddharth's 'Oh My Friend', Ram-Gautam Menon's trilingual, Balakrishna's 'Hara Hara Mahadeva' and 'Adhinayakudu' and Nagarjuna's 'Damarukam' to list a few.

The fate of the soon-to-be launched flicks like Allu Arjun-Trivikram's project and the other low-budget ones is not yet decided. The strike, however, isn't affecting the release of 'Dookudu' (September 23), 'Oosaravelli' (October 6), 'Rajanna' (October 13), 'Ganga-The Bodyguard' (October 14) and 'Bejawada' (October 21).

Meanwhile, producer sector chairman of APFCC Natti Kumar avowed that the Telugu film producers will abide by the declaration of the SIFCC.