Prosenjit Chatterjee waits as Tolly technicians refuse to shoot

The Bengali film industry has been witnessing a never-seen-before conflict between two groups: filmmakers and technicians. So much so that Tollywood technicians refused to shoot with Rahool Mukherjee, and as a result, they kept none other than Prosenjit Chatterjee waiting in vain at Technician's Studio on Saturday. Rahool was scheduled to start shooting his new film with Prosenjit and Anirban. Soon a large number of Tollywood directors, including Raj Chakraborty, Parambrata Chatterjee, Srijit Mukherjee, Kaushik Ganguly, Debaloy Bhattacharya, Manasi Sinha, Sudeshna Roy, Joydeep Mukherjee, and others, gathered at the studio in Rahool’s solidarity. 

On Friday, the Directors Association Of Eastern India revoked their ‘compulsory waiting status’ on director Rahool Mukherjee. In a press release, it was stated that the association has ‘misleading and incomplete’ information. After this decision, Rahool was reinstated as the director of SVF’s upcoming project, which features Prosenjit Chatterjee, Anirban Bhattacharya, Priyanka Sarkar, and others. 

Also read: Rahool Mukherjee reinstated as the director of Prosenjit Chatterjee-Anirban Bhattacharya’s film 

However, the Federation of Cine Technicians & Workers of Eastern India refused to accept this. They decided that Rahool could only work as the creative producer and could be on the set. On Saturday, they refused to join the shooting.

Also read: Rahool Mukherjee vs Federation: Srijit Mukherji, Debaloy Bhattacharya, and others gear up to take on the ‘highhandedness’ - will they succeed? 

An exasperated Prosenjit told the media, “Every day we are preparing our script and the shooting is getting postponed. This has been going on for days. We want everybody to work.”  

At the Studio, Raj Chakraborty termed this as humiliation and said, “Let them think over it for two days. They must ponder over the fact that there would be no work if directors go on strike.”

Parambrata said that apart from legislators, no one can create laws in India. “Why are they (technicians) coming up with laws and terming things ‘unlawful’ by their whims? They are making 'gupi' shooting unlawful which is wrong. They impose a number of technicians on directors even when that is not needed. We abide by that. But there is a limit,” he said.

Later on Saturday, the directors issued a press note clarifying that their demands were not unlawful and they had never been against the technicians. They called it a tiff within a family. However, they pointed out that the Bengali entertainment industry suffers from budget crunch and the regulations laid out by the Federation often become detrimental. Srijit, Parambrata, Riddhi Sen, Rahool, Joydeep, Manasi Sinha, and many others shared the note on their social media.