Mollywood-PVR INOX tiff: FEFKA demands compensation for withdrawal of Malayalam movies, threatens to launch agitation in front of the screens

A meeting of the federation decided to step up the protest against the company after it refused to screen the new releases

KOCHI: The Film Employees Federation of Kerala (FEFKA) has stated that Malayalam movies will not be screened on screens under PVR INOX until the multiplex player compensates for the loss suffered for not screening new releases following the rift between the Kerala Film Producers’ Association (KFPA) over content sharing.

A meeting of the federation held here on April 13 decided to step up the protest against the company after it refused to screen the new releases including Fahadh Faasil’s Aavesham, Vineeth Sreenivasan directorial Varshangalkku Shesham and Unni Mukundan’s Jai Ganesh. It had also stopped screening the previously released Malayalam films Premalu, Manjummal Boys, and Aadujeevitham.

B. Unnikrishnan, general secretary of FEFKA, told media persons that they will stage protests in front of the theatres owned by the exhibitor, if the issue is not resolved. “We have also sought the intervention of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in finding a solution against the unilateral position taken by the company not to screen Malayalam films.,” he said. 

The company hardened its stance after it stated that the KFPA advised it to source Malayalam movie content through the content mastering and distribution network run by the producers’ association at its multiplex in Forum Mall here. Such an action of forcing an exhibitor to procure content from only one source is anti-competitive in nature and prohibited under the law. As a law-abiding member of Indian Film Industry, we are unable to comply with this advice, it said in a release on April 11.

Blessy, director ofAadujeevitham, said that his producer had suffered a huge loss after the movie was pulled out from the screens affiliated to the PVR INOX. They refused to screen the movie even after the virtual print fee (VPF) was paid in advance, he said.

The KFPA had recently launched PDC (Producers’ Digital Cinema), a content mastering unit, after the producers and distributors found the VPF being charged by existing content providers like Qube, UFO, PXD, TSR to screen the movies in the theatres too high. The objective of PDC is to screen the movies at a reasonable cost, it said.

At present, the PDC-mastered content is mostly being given to theatres, which screen movies using their own projector and server. An understanding has been reached with other theatres to shift to PDC once their ongoing agreement with other content providers expired. Producers and distributors were still cooperating by paying exorbitant VPF towards the rent of projectors provided by the content providers in the hope that a solution will be found in due course, according to the representatives of KFPA.