Sandalwood campaign video exhorts audience to watch films in movie theatres

Bengaluru: Sandalwood continues to reel under the Covid-19 pandemic blow. Though cinema halls reopened on October 15 after closure of six months, business remains unencouraging. The hopes of theatre owners to bounce back to business during the festive season did not come true.

In this dark scenario, Sandalwood actors have launched a campaign to lend a helping hand to revive the business. A short video "Celebrate Cinema Again" directed by Yogi G Raj of Bangara s/o Bangarada Manushya fame under KRG Studios has been released. The video appeals to people to watch the movies only in theatres which would eventually provide livelihood to many people not just in theatres but also in the industry.

Speaking to The Hans India, Yogi G Raj said "Everybody who loves movies is waiting for theatres to re-open, because everybody knows there is no better place to experience a movie than in a cinema with friends and family. But over the past few months movie theaters have earned virtually no revenue amidst mounting fixed expenses. Even after theaters were reopened, the road for recovery is very long because of the very nature of movie theaters as public gathering places and people are scared to enter the hall."

"Celebrate Cinema Again" has turned out to be a mass movement, with thousands of people, especially the film personalities like Puri Jagannath, sharing the video on various other social networking sites. The video has many Sandalwood superstars like Shivrajkumar, Puneeth Rajkumar, Ganesh, Dhananjay, Duniya Vijay and Sri Murali appealing to people to support the film industry.

Meanwhile it is learnt that Telugu cinema lovers are also requesting Tollywood celebrities to come up with a similar video to give confidence to audience to return to movie theatres and celebrate cinema again.

"I am very happy that people and film personalities are impressed by the "Celebrate Cinema Again" campaign video. It all happened because Karthik Gowda (KRG Studios) and I thought of contributing something positive and rise to the occasion to help the industry. We have tried to convince the people that cinema halls are strictly following the Covid protocol and the occupancy rate would not be more than 50 percent of the capacity. Security personnel would make sure that nobody would enter cinema halls without face masks. We are releasing a new movie this Friday and let's celebrate the world of cinema again," says Yogi G Raj. November 20 (Friday) will mark release of the first new Sandalwood film titled Act 1978 in theatres. The social thriller, which has received a U certificate, will be distributed by KRG Studios and screened at various theatres across Karnataka.