Tamil film producer Bharathiraja says theatre owners 'can't dictate terms' as the scuffle between both parties continues

The tiff between Tamil film producers and the theatre owners in the state is far from being over. Director Bharathiraja recently cleared his uncompromising stand while inaugurating an office of the Tamil Film Active Producers Association (TFAPA) in Chennai. During the event on Monday, 14 September, the director spoke to reporters and said that as the product (films) were the property of the producers, they get to decide who these will be sold to. “No one can dictate terms on whom I can sell my product to,” he added. Assuring that the producers were open to discussions, the 78-year-old filmmaker said, “Now, there are no distributors to play middlemen. We are directly selling our films to theatre owners. Therefore a big portion of the benefit goes to theatre owners”.

Producers v/s Theatres in #TN - #Bharathiraja president of TN Active producers association said “Theatre owners can’t dictate terms. We want to screen movies in theatres on our terms as product is ours. If theatres don’t agree to our terms, we will embrace OTT platforms.” pic.twitter.com/uZxYhstCqz

— Sreedhar Pillai (@sri50) September 15, 2020

There are six requests made by the TFAPA placed at the table for discussion, but the theatre owners have reportedly refused to accept the terms. Tirupur Subramaniam, the president of the Theatre Owners’ Association, had spoken about the dire situation they will be put in when they are pushed to look for other options like converting their movie halls into wedding halls or locations for screening IPL matches. The 16 Vayathinile director replied to this argument as well. He said, “They can turn it into Kalyana mandapam (wedding halls), [or] conduct a conference… The building is theirs. But our product is their selling point. The audience comes in for our product”. He said the producers will have to move on to the OTT platforms if the theatre owners refuse to accept their demands. Other popular Tamil producers like CV Kumar, SR Prabhu and Dhananjayan were also present. The scuffle between the two parties has been afire for several months now. The direct OTT release of Jyothika’s Pon Magal Vandhal had largely displeased the theatre owners in Tamil Nadu. Produced by Jyothika’s husband Suriya under his banner 2D Entertainment, the movie was announced to be directly released on Amazon Prime Video, skipping theatrical release due to the pandemic-induced lockdown.