Arunachal film producers pay for their love of telling stories
ITANAGAR: Films everywhere travel the producer-distributor-exhibitor route to be screened.
Not in Arunachal Pradesh, if that film happens to be produced locally. In this frontier state that China calls Southern Tibet, film producers have to hire a cinema hall and sell their own tickets to entertain people with their creativity.
But hall owners follow the standard practice for mainstream Hindi and English movies. This, the Film Federation of Arunachal (FFA) says, is not done in a state that is building a Film and Television Institute of India — the third after Pune and Kolkata — in Itanagar.
“Screening our films is a costly affair. It works out to a third or fourth of the cost of producing a film in digital format,” Shambo Flago, a filmmaker told HT.
‘Mwngkar — The Realisation’, a film in Arunachali Hindi directed by Flago, cost ₹15 lakh. One of the four movies made in 2015 mixed comedy with serious issues like polygamy practiced by a few tribes in the state.
“Twin capitals Itanagar and Naharlagun have three 150-seater cinema halls. To screen our film, we had to hire the hall by paying an average ₹200 per seat per show upfront. In the bargain, we got the entire bunch of tickets to sell,” said Flago.
The hall owners defend this arrangement. “There aren’t too many takers for local films,” said a manager on condition of anonymity. “We know we will lose money, but we love to tell stories through films,” said FFA president Chopa Cheda
The federation has asked the state government to frame a policy so that — as in adjoining Assam — it becomes mandatory for exhibitors to screen films in tribal dialects for a minimum period per year.
“We are working on a policy that will take care of many aspects, including the problems of local filmmakers,” said Arunachal Pradesh chief secretary Ramesh Negi.
The policy is expected to include incentives for local as well as mainstream filmmakers who shoot a major portion of their films in the state