BANGALORE: The Karnataka Cinema Theater Owners Association (KCTOA) has invited film personalities from Bollywood including Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya and the South Indian stars Rajnikant and Chiranjeevi to take part in a solidarity march against the Karnataka government panel recommendations which enforced a moratorium on the non-Kannada films' release in the state.
Media reports quote eminent producer Yash Chopra as saying "After all something as to be done. We producers are losing lakhs of rupees every day because Karnataka has stopped the release of our films. We are trying to release our movies in Pakistan and we can't do it in our own country? Let them give all benefits to Kannada films, but in a cosmopolitan city like Bangalore how can they stop other movies from screening?"
The government is already under pressure from the center to resolve the issue following the meeting of various Bollywood personalities and exhibitors had with the Prime Minister and I&B minister Jaipal Reddy. Karnataka CM has instructed the film panel chairman and additional chief secretary (Finance) K P Pandey to call for a meeting and sort out the problem on 2 September. According to reports, as on date Pandey has still not called for an emergency meeting of the panel he himself heads.
The reports quote the Karnataka Film Producers Association (KFPA) president Basant Kumar Patil challenging the superstars to come to Bangalore. He has claimed that many non-Kannada theater exhibitors were against closing down of the theatres. The KFPA has organized a 'safeguard' ten-man team of producers to stage a dharna supported by all producers in front of theaters on Saturday.
As reported by Indiantelevision.com, the government sponsored panel headed by the Pandey had recommended that non-Kannada Films be released in Karnataka only after seven weeks from the date of release in their own states and that only six prints of each film be permitted for the state.
The KFPA ridiculed the one-day strike carried out by the North Karnataka Theaters Associations under the Hubli-Belgaum and North Karnataka districts calling it a flop. Still, a section of the industry sources insist that the strike was a success.
In another development at Bellary which gets it's films from Guntur, Andhra Pradesh and not Bangalore, the deputy collector (DC) stopped screening of a new Telugu film in a theater, debunking the governments claims that it is not directly responsible in the matter. This interference by the DC has reportedly resulted in an indefinite closure of all its seven or eight theaters.
