IMPPA PRESIDENT T.P. AGGARWAL REQUESTS CHIEF MINISTER UDDHAV THACKERAY TO LIFT LOCKDOWN ON POST PRODUCTION SERVICES IN FILMS

Jyothi Venkatesh

For and on behalf of T.P. Aggarwal, President, the Indian Motion Picture Producers’ Association, Secretary Anil Nagrath has dashed off letters to not only Uddhav Thackeray, The Chief Minister of Maharashtra but also Amit Deshmukh, Minister of Cultural Affairs, Government of Maharashtra. The letter reads thus: As your kind self is well aware, the entire film and entertainment industry has been in a complete state of lockdown since 16-3-20 when the Government of Maharashtra stopped all production activities and as such all activities related to shooting, pre production and post production have been fully and totally suspended. All our producer members and everyone else associated with the film and entertainment industry have been left jobless and with no income and hence other sectors of the industry are looking after the welfare of their members and we are extending help to our needy members to survive in these difficult days but due to the wide spread extension of the lockdown on account of the uncontrollable spread of the corona virus, it has led to a situation which is very volatile and dangerous from the point of view of survival of our members.

We are very grateful to you for very efficiently and capably managing the State in these very difficult and crucial days and at this present moment, when the Government is providing relaxation in the lockdown for some selected businesses to start their work so that they can survive, we would like to request you to kindly help us in trying to revive the film industry. Though we fully understand that it might not be possible for you to allow early resumption of film shooting as they involve large number of people, you may kindly please allow our members to go ahead and complete the post production of their films and other entertainment products as in majority of cases, all the shooting and other work has been completed except for the editing, dubbing and post production which are all activities performed indoors in secluded offices with very limited number of personnel like in editing only 2 or 3 persons and in mixing and special effects also only 2/3 persons are required and these activities can safely be carried out maintaining full ‘social distancing’ after taking all safety and security precautions.

As the stoppage of all post production activities has resulted in halting of completion of our members entertainment products resulting in their investment getting hopelessly stuck and therefore in the interest of all our members, we earnestly request you to kindly include all entertainment products post production activities in the list of permissible activities so that the same can resume without any delay thereby providing tremendous relief to our members by enabling them to monetize their product.