EIMPCC gears up to hold a rally with artistes and technicians

Tollywood technicians, directors and artistes under the umbrella of Eastern India Motion Pictures and Cultural Confederation are gearing up to hold a rally on Monday. The rally will start from the Uttam Kumar statue, near Tollygunge

tram

depot, and continue till

Dasani

Studio. According to the confederation’s spokesperson Sanghamitra Chowdhury, several artistes, ‘including George Baker, Debika Mukherjee, Rahul Burman, Priyanka Banerjee, Ronojoy Bhattacharya and others, along with 1,500-2,000 technicians’, will be present at the rally.

“We have certain demands, like to clear the dues pending to the artistes, technicians and others, to ensure the run of Bengali films in the prime time at the multiplexes,” said Sanghamitra.

While talking about the rights of technicians, she said, “Getting an accreditation card from the existing guild is becoming a huge deal. Many people are not getting work since they do not have a card. Moreover, there are allegations of charging large amount of money to issue cards. When I got my card in 2009 in Directors’ Association, I had to pay Rs 1,500. There are allegations that the heads of the current guild are asking in lakhs. This has to stop.”

Explaining the confederation’s plan, Sanghamitra added, “We will be having our own guild and we will issue accreditation card to the technicians without charging any money.”

The confederation that is formed recently has promised to focus on other issues of Tollywood too. “While we call it an industry, Tollywood is not really an official industry unlike in other states. We will escalate the matter with the Centre’s I&B Ministry so that all the artistes, technicians and other people concerned get Central Card. We want Tollywood to get a formalised status of industry,” Sanghamitra said.