IMPPA WRITES TO GUJARAT CM FOR CHANGING FEW GUIDELINES FOR RESTARTING THE SHOOT IN STATE OF GUJARAT

Jyothi Venkatesh

In a letter addressed to Shri Vijay Rupaniji, Honourable Chief Minister, Government of Gujarat. Shri T.P. Aggarwal, President, IMPPA has thanked him for allowing of restarting shooting in Gujarat. Says Shri Aggarwal ,“ We are extremely grateful to your kind self for kindly issuing necessary order for restarttng of shooting in Gujarat issued by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting,Gujarat Government on 4-6-20 which is something very helpful for all the film and entertainment content producers whose work has been totally held up after imposition of the lockdown and who are facing heavy economic crisis on account of stoppage of all activities.Though we are very happy and satisfied with most of the conditions, we would request you to kindly make slight modifications in the following conditions which will go a long way to help the producer and create a more conducive atmosphere for starting of shooting:

1. While in clause 2, it is provided that “District collector and Magistrate permission must be taken for Shooting purposes.” which is the only permission mentioned in the SOPs for starting shooting in Maharashtra and Karnataka, it is mentioned in clause 3 that “Usual guidelines must be followed for shooting, i.e permission from Corporation, City police, Traffic police, Tourism, Archaeology dept, etc. must be taken.” which only means additional work and harassment for the producer as well as the concerned officials who are already over burdened with the Covid 19 work and therefore should be done away with for the time being.

2. Clause 6 provides that “The rules must be followed given by local officials at the time of shooting.” which also can lead to much confusion as well as become a problem due to the all encompassing authority given to the local authorities to form rules which clause is totally vague and unclear.

3. Clause 10 provides that “PPE kit must be worn by Makeup artist.” Please note PPE kit is not required and is not mentioned in any state’s SOP because gloves, mask and face shield are more than enough to take care of the safety requirement.

4. Clause 12 provides that “The scenes where so many people are involved say dance, fight, party, function etc cannot be shot.” Please note that no film or entertainment content of any kind can be completed without fight, party or function scene and hence instead of declaring that no such scene should be shot, the order should be modified to say that such scenes should be shot with minimum crowd while compulsorily maintaining social distancing and taking all precautions.

We trust your kind self will agree that we are demanding very minor changes in the directi