Directors in Bengali film industry call for cease work from July 29 in solidarity with filmmaker banned by technicians’ body

PTI, Jul 29, 2024, 12:47 PM IST

Kolkata: Amid the ongoing impasse over technicians’ body refusal to work under a particular director for a project, majority of directors of the Bengali film industry have decided to go for an indefinite cease work from Monday in solidarity with the young filmmaker.

Directors Association of Eastern India said in a statement on Sunday night, “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.”

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.

The directors further asserted federation cannot be the sole dictator of the industry and 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 ceasework 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, web series in 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.

“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 artist’s 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.

On July 27, despite the clean chit given to filmmaker Rahool Mukherjee by the Directors’ Guild allowing him to work as 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 was being debarred from directing films for three months for violating norms by visiting Bangladesh for shooting another movie without intimation to the federation and taking the help of technicians in Dhaka.

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 Rahool Mukherjee 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 had admitted his mistake at the first meeting with the federation and guild earlier in July but now retracting,,” Biswas said.

The untitled film produced by SVF mired in uncertainty starred Prosenjit Chatterjee, Anirban Bhattacharya and Priyanka Sarkar.

SVF which was behind the project had 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 now demanded that he should not be replaced.