Bigwigs trying to crush small filmmakers, allege producers

More than 1000-odd producers are up in arms against leading producer Suresh Babu and his team for claiming that the existing Telugu Film Producers Council has become defunct and planning to begin a new producers’ body with some active producers. “Where were these so-called bigwigs when the dispute between two producers Bellamkonda Suresh and Sravanthi Ravi Kishore took an ugly turn recently. It was resolved by a member of Telugu Producers’ Guild, who held discussions with both the warring parties and fixed it in nine hours. 

We can cite many such instances, hence, office-bearers of the Producers’ Guild are active and they are capable of resolving disputes among members and the ad-hoc committee led by K L Narayana is also doing its work,” says Yelamanchali Ravichand, who claims that there are 2,400 members including 1,200 members with voting rights in the guild. 

“These attempts are nothing but to crush the 1,000-odd small film producers and leave them high and dry. Already, they are holding the network of exhibitors and distributors under their iron grip and now, they  want to take over the trade bodies to crush the lives of hundreds of small film producers and eventually push them out of business. But our members will not allow that to happen and let them day-dream. Because this idea was nixed in our last general body meeting and voice of the majority always counts,” adds Ravichand. 

However, producer Mahesh said that they already started a new body two years ago. “The so-called top producers Suresh Babu, Allu Arvind, Dil Raju, Paruchuri Prasad, Damodar Prasad, Teja and others established a new body-Associated Producers of Telugu LLP- but the membership has come down from 14-odd members to nine members, thus,  losing its sheen. Earlier, big producers even started the Chintraseema TV channel but it ended up as a flop show. Just 20-odd producers cannot match the strength of 1200 members. Frankly, out of 120-odd Telugu films made every year, the small filmmakers dish out 80-odd films. So, the odds are in our favour. 

They don’t give theatres and distribute films of newcomers, but only promote movies of members of four or five filmi families, which is unethical,” Ramesh adds. Dismissing the new attempts as an exercise in futility, producer Madhu adds “They are eyeing for the Rs 12 crore fund in the Producers’ Council but they cannot touch even a rupee from it. 

This money is meant for providing on premium for insurance and other welfare measures for ailing producers. Our members include Yash Chopra, Rajshri’s and Nadiadwalas and AVM productions and local stars includes like superstar Krishna, Krishnam Raju Pawan Kalyan and  Mahesh babu.So, there is no match to our strength,” he concludes.