Film shooting stops at Kolkata studios over technicians’ beef with director

Amid the ongoing impasse in Kolkata over film technicians’ refusal to work with a particular director for a project, no shooting took place on Monday (July 29) in any film studio in the city and surrounding areas as directors of the Bengali film industry decided to go for an indefinite cease-work in solidarity with the young filmmaker.

“No shooting took place in any of the 11 studios since this morning,” a spokesperson of the Directors’ Guild said on Monday.

Indefinite cease-work

The technicians’ body is also slated to meet later on Monday on their boycott, while producers also came forward in support of the directors’ demand.

The Directors Association of Eastern India, in a statement on Sunday night, said, “In deference to the wishes and sentiments of majority of directors, the association has decided to go for indefinite cease work on shooting floors from Monday (July 29) till the problem faced by directors are addressed in an amicable and proper manner.”

What is the row about?

On July 27, despite a clean chit given to filmmaker Rahool Mukherjee by the Directors’ Guild allowing him to work as the creative producer in an upcoming film, no technician turned up at a Kolkata studio on the first day of shooting.

Federation of Cine Technicians and Workers of Eastern India (FCTWEI) president Swarup Biswas said Mukherjee had been debarred from directing films for three months for violating norms by visiting Bangladesh for shooting another movie without intimating the federation and taking the help of technicians in Dhaka.

Technicians’ claim

Biswas told reporters that while it had been amicably decided earlier that Rahool Mukherjee would be the creative producer of the film to be shot from July 27, the call sheet given to them for the shoot still referred to him as the director and he was seen taking every initiative during the shoot.

“This was seen as violating the spirit of our agreement and we technicians don’t want to work under the instruction of Mukherjee who had not taken any technician from Kolkata to complete 10 days of shooting of an OTT film Lohu in Bangladesh earlier this year.

“Mukherjee himself admitted his mistake at the first meeting with the federation and guild earlier in July but is now retracting,” Biswas claimed.

Directors put down foot

SVF, which was behind the project, had earlier stated that Soumik Haldar would now direct the film while Rahool Mukherjee would be the creative producer. However, most directors, in solidarity with Rahool Mukherjee, have now demanded that he should not be replaced.

In a Facebook post titled #directorsinsolidarity, prominent filmmakers, including Aparna Sen, Kaushik Ganguly, Srijit Mukherjee, Arindam Sil, Indrasis Acharya, Indradip Dasgupta, Kamaleswar Mukherjee, Atanu Ghosh, and others said despite the Directors’ Guild allowing Rahool Mukherjee to helm the shooting of the untitled film (by SVF), the first-day shoot could not take place on July 27 at a city studio as the technicians stayed away.

“This was extremely humiliating for the directors and actors present at the shooting floor. As demanded by many directors after this development we suggest until the technicians under the federation agree to take part in the shoot accepting Rahool Mukherjee as director, till then we will be forced to go for non-cooperation,” the statement said.

“Arbitrary” will

The directors further asserted that the federation cannot impose its will in an arbitrary manner without seeking any acceptable solution. “The way technicians of the federation have been forced to non-cooperate with Rahool Mukherjee is ominous for the entertainment industry and insulting for every single director,” the statement said.

Arindam Sil said, “The cease-work will be only applicable for Bengali film, serial and web series shoots.”

Voicing apprehension that the boycott of the director by technicians and protests by other directors may snowball into a major crisis affecting shoots of films, serials, and web series in the Bengali film industry, West Bengal Motion Pictures Artists Forum president and veteran actor Ranjit Mallick and secretary Santilal Mukherjee on Sunday requested all sides to sit for talks immediately and thrash out the differences.

Call for peace

“Any disruption of shooting will affect actors, directors, technicians, producers — every stakeholder in the industry — which will do no good... We, therefore, call upon every side to sit for talks for the interest of industry and iron out differences. If required, the artists’ forum can mediate to resolve the issue. Let’s not allow the situation to snowball into a major crisis that will only affect everyone in the industry as well as the audiences,” the forum earlier said.

The forum is the apex body of actors in the entertainment industry in Bengal.

The fate of the untitled film produced by SVF, starring Prosenjit Chatterjee, Anirban Bhattacharya, and Priyanka Sarkar, is now mired in uncertainty.

(With agency inputs)