Walkout over stray comment at FFI meet

DECEMBER 28: The 46th annual general meeting of the Film Federation of India (FFI) turned chaotic when a slip of the tounge by vice-presid...

DECEMBER 28: The 46th annual general meeting of the Film Federation of India (FFI) turned chaotic when a slip of the tounge by vice-president Shakti Samanta sparked off a walkout. Though the federation includes producers, distributors, exhibitors, exporters and studio-owners, Samanta’s remark that the federation is for producers irked producer-director N N Sippy. Sippy, who is president of the Indian Motion Picture Distributors and treasurer of the FFI, resigned his post and stormed out of the meeting.

Ignoring Samanta’s apology and the persuasion of other members, Sippy was joined by U A Thadani, president of the Theatre Owners Association and film distributors Balkrishna Shroff, Indravadan Shah and Devendra Shah.

Sippy also argued that it was the turn of the Western Region for presidentship. Last year it had been the turn of the Southern region but due to the untimely death of G Hanumantha Rao, Kerala movie moghul-hotelier, transport company owner P Gangadharan was chosen for the interim period of threemonths. Representatives of the Southern film industry were in full support for Gangadharan’s continuation as president. This found favour with other Bollywood leaders except the ones who walked out.

Inspite of the discordant note, Gangadharan was elected as head. The post of treasurer was kept vacant to persuade Sippy to return. Other office-bearers are vice-presidents S S Jain, Shakti Samanta, K G Dossani and G D Mehta. Tilak Raj Magan was chosen as the general secrtary while Supran Sen continues as secretary.