Whilst theatres in lots of components of the nation battle to renew full operations, the Indian movie business is bracing up for an additional showdown between producers and film exhibitors over the contentious Digital Print Price (VPF).
The VPF difficulty, which introduced the complete Tamil movie business to a standstill for greater than 45 days in 2018, is again to the fore once more.
The Tamil Movie Lively Producers’ Affiliation (TFAPA) not too long ago wrote a letter with a set of six calls for to the president of Tamil Nadu Theatre House owners Affiliation to permit new film releases. Main among the many calls for is the abolishment of VPF expenses, which the producers say they’ve borne on behalf of theatre house owners for the final 10 years and might not do it.
What’s VPF?
VPF is a cost paid by producers to digital service suppliers (DSPs) similar to Qube Cinema and UFO Moviez. Earlier, when movies had been developed from negatives, producers and distributors used to bear the print price to develop these movies whereas exhibitors bore the projector price. Nevertheless, in 2010, cinemas had been upgraded to digital projectors. For the reason that expertise was pricey, it was agreed that theatres will levy VPF on producers and distributors for a interval of 5 years to get well the associated fee. VPF expenses vary between ₹12,000-25,000 per display relying on the size of movie and single display/multiplex.
“VPF consists of two parts. One is in direction of the price of a projector put in on the theatre and the opposite is for the content material that we ship that are serviced on the theatres,” Producer and Distributor, G Dhananjayan stated, including, “Projector is the elemental gear requirement of a theatre and why ought to a producer pay the lease cost for it below the identify of VPF.”
Nevertheless, movie exhibitors appear to downplay the risk. “Since theatres are anticipated to re-open after 8-months, I consider the producers are additionally keen to launch their films and VPF is not going to be an enormous difficulty,” stated Tiruppur Subramaniam, President, Tamil Nadu Theatre and Multiplex House owners’ Affiliation.
However TFAPA tweeted on Wednesday that, “We as producers are clear that no new movie launch is scheduled by our members until the answer to VPF difficulty is achieved with theatre house owners.”
Kollywood just isn’t the one business to be affected by the VPF difficulty. Numerous field workplace web sites have additionally talked about that main Bollywood producers are debating on the necessity for VPF.
In 2019, Bollywood Producer Ronnie Screwvala unsuccessfully sought Competitors Fee of India’s intervention calling the VPF cost as ‘selective, draconian, discriminatory and exploitative’. In his petition in opposition to the 4 multiplex chains — PVR, INOX, Cinepolis and Carnival cinemas — Screwvala alleged that an Indian producer has to pay ₹2-3 crore to multiplexes as VPF if they need their movies to be launched in 1,000-1,500 screens.
Uncertainty looms
Inside three days of theatre opening in Karnataka earlier this month over 60 Kannada movies have been stalled as a result of a disagreement between Movie Producers Affiliation & DSPs over this difficulty. The scenario isn’t any totally different in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh. The Telugu Movie Producers Council final week wrote a letter to The Telugu Movie Chamber of Commerce stating that, “The third events employed the Digital gear to the Theatres are looting the business and due to this fact Chamber has to take instant motion to save lots of the business from third events.”
With theatres already working wanting contemporary content material and dropping among the main titles to OTT platforms in the previous couple of months, the VPF difficulty might as soon as once more carry the curtains down on theatres.
