West Bengal film directors strike over technicians not showing up for Rahool Mukherjee’s shoot
Directors to 'not work' until technicians accept Mukherjee as the director of an upcoming SVF Entertainment movie, taking film production to a halt.
3 min read
Director Rahool Mukherjee The Bengali film industry is in turmoil after directors Monday went on strike to support their colleague Rahool Mukherjee after technicians refused to work under his direction on an upcoming SVF film. Despite the Directors Guild’s approval for Mukherjee to work after he was temporarily “banned” for not seeking their permission to film in a foreign country, the first day of shooting for his new project was disrupted due to the technicians not showing up on Saturday.
In response, the Directors Association of Eastern India announced that they would cease work from Monday onwards to demand a resolution for the issue.
Prominent filmmakers like Aparna Sen, Kaushik Ganguly, and Srijit Mukherjee have publicly supported the strike, using the hashtag #directorsinsolidarity. The industry is now at a standstill, with film production brought to a halt.
Shortly after 9 pm on Sunday, the Directors Guild sent out a notification to members on their phones in Bengali: “Giving importance and respect to the sentiments and opinions of the majority of the directors, the executive committee of the organization requests that the members will remain absent from all shooting floors in Bengali from tomorrow (29/12/2024) until the problems of the directors are resolved amicably.”
The notification said that directors would continue to not work until the federation of technicians accept Rahool Mukherjee as the director of the SVF Entertainment movie.
“All the directors and actors present at Mukherjee’s shoot felt humiliated,” said a senior person from the entertainment industry.
Big-screen stars of Tollywood including Raj Chakraborty, Kaushik Gangopadhyay, Arindam Sheel, Devalaya Bhattacharya, Parambrata Chatterjee, Mansi Sinha, Tathagata Mukherjee, Pavel, Raja Chand, Abhijit Sen, Amit Das, Subhrajit Mitra, and others have come up in support.
“If this continues, the day will come when studios will have no choice but to become warehouses again,” actor Dev Adhikari wrote on X on Sunday.
On July 23, the Federation of Cine Technicians and Workers of Eastern India (FCTWEI) banned Mukherjee from making films for three months on the charge of violating its rules for visiting Bangladesh for shooting without their permission. This issue had come up after he was told to give technicians from West Bengal “double the pay” for working on a “foreign” series for a Bangladeshi platform.
On Saturday, the prohibition was lifted by the Directors Guild. The film Mukherjee is currently working on is set to feature actors Prosenjit Chatterjee and Anirban Bhattacharya. Chatterjee, a prominent face in Tollywood, called the development “unfortunate.”
You May Like
Photos
