Prominent cinemas to down shutters today in Kolkata, wait for new releases to reopen

KOLKATA: Diwali is over and cinemas in the city are to ground zero. Priya, Menoka, Ajanta, Asoka, Prachi, Jaya and Rupasi will shut down on Friday. The move comes despite four Soumitra Chatterjee movies — ‘Belaseshe’, ‘Sanjhbati’, ‘Praktan’ and ‘Posto’ — re-releasing as a tribute to the legend who passed away on Sunday.

According to exhibitors, the footfall will not be enough for great business. They want to reopen as soon as a big Hindi movie is released. Arijit Dutta, owner of Priya, told TOI that the low footfall was costing him more to keep his cinema open than shut. According to Pranab Kumar Roy, owner of Menoka, the footfall had been so low that it was difficult to run the facility. Satadeep Saha, co-owner of Ajanta Cinema, said people were just not ready for cinemas yet.

Rituparna Sengupta, whose ‘Praktan’ is re-releasing this week, was upset over prominent theatres shutting down at a time when homage is being paid to the legendary Chatterjee. “Over six decades, Soumitra Chatterjee has given so much to the industry. Apart from previous hits, his recent movies like ‘Belaseshe’ and ‘Praktan’ were huge hits. Can’t the exhibitors have a little patience to keep the cinemas open when his movies are re-releasing? The situation is unprecedented. We have all suffered losses. But shutting down is not the way out,” Sengupta said.

What has rattled her further is the argument that Bengali cinemas can’t survive without big Hindi releases. “Our industry has seen Bengali cinema making money. In the absence of Hindi films at a time like this, we need to support each other and try to make our industry self-dependent. Theatre owners had been cribbing about halls being shut during lockdown and requesting everyone to open up. Now, why can’t they be a little patient and wait for the business to pick up?” she wondered.

However, Dev, whose ‘Sanjhbati’ is also re-releasing, doesn’t blame the theatre owners for shutting down. “It is a Catch-22 situation. I went to watch ‘Switzerland’ on Wednesday. It is a sweet film, but there were so few people in the theatres. How can an exhibitor survive this way? I have big films ready, but can’t release them at this moment. The permitted occupancy is just 50% of the capacity. Couples and families have to sit far from each other. All these factors are impacting the footfall.”