Tollywood undecided on cut in stars’ remuneration

The executive council of the Movie Artistes’ Association (MAA) of the Telugu film industry met on Monday to discuss the cost-cutting measures and cut in remuneration of the stars.

However, film personalities doubt if fee cut will be implemented as there is no unity among producers and many stars are kith and kin of top film producers.

Telugu film producers’ council has been proposing a 50 per cent cut in star remunerations since the past one week and has asked the MAA to discuss the matter before taking the final decision.

Several actors, including Balakrishna, Murali Mohan and Tarun, gathered at Jayabheri Club in Madhapur to discuss the issue.Stars and representatives of the MAA refused to divulge details of the discussions to the media after the meeting.

Producers claim that since more than 60 per cent of the film’s production cost is spent on fees, the actors should take pay cuts to save the crisis-ridden industry. “Stars like Junior NTR charge Rs 7 crore per film. Directors like Puri Jagannath and Rajamouli charge not less than Rs 5 crore. We get money on loan to make movies and the film is shot for more than a year. If the movie bombs, we go bankrupt. It is time, the fees are reduced substantially,” said a producer.

However, not a single Tollywood actor has declared that he is willing to take pay cut to reduce budget strain on the producer.

“The film industry tried to cut the fees of stars about a decade ago. But it didn’t work out as there was no unity among producers. Small producers are scared of stars and pay them whatever they demand. I doubt if it will be implemented at all,” said Jayasudha, MLA and vice-president of MAA.

A Filmnagar source said a few directors might pay the stars the same amount even if the producers’ council wants otherwise.

Nandi Award for Ravi Teja, Swati

Chief Minister K. Rosaiah said the government would resolve the problems, including piracy, faced by the film industry if suggestions were made for tackling them after studying them in detail.

After giving away the Nandi Awards–2008 at a glittering function in the Lalitha Kala Thoranam here on Tuesday, he said that ever since the formation of the State in 1956, successive governments had helped doyens of the film industry in slowly shifting production and processing facilities from erstwhile Madras.

Mr. Rosaiah, Minister for Information and Broadcasting J. Geeta Reddy and others from the industry expressed concern over the steep decline in Telugu movies with socially relevant themes. Though commercial films were necessary, the power of the medium should be utilised to make message-oriented films and wholesome family entertainers, they said.

The who's who in the world of Telugu films was present and tight security put in place following talk that pro-Telangana activists were likely to disrupt proceedings. Ravi Teja was presented the Best Actor award (Neninte), while Swati bagged the Best Actress award for her role in ‘Ashta Chamma'. ‘Gamyam' bagged the Best Film award while its director J. Radhakrishna got the Best Director award. Sonu Sood won the Best Villain award (Arundhati) and the heroine of the film, Anushka got a Special Jury award.

Brahmanandam was declared Best Comedian for his role in ‘Ready', while Allari Naresh and Raksha got the Best Supporting Actor (Gamyam) and Best Supporting Actress (Nachavule) awards, respectively. The Best Child Actor award went to B. Bharat Kumar and Best Child Actress award to Divya Nagesh.

The Chief Minister presented the N.T. Rama Rao National Film Award to yesteryear actress Jamuna and Raghupati Venkaiah Award for lifetime achievement to actress/producer-director Vijayanirmala. K.B. Tilak was given the B.N. Reddy National Award for his contribution to film direction and A. Ramesh Prasad given the Nagi Reddy and Chakrapani National Award.

Ms. Jamuna said she would donate Rs. 1 lakh out of the Rs. 5 lakh cash award presented to her, to the Chief Minster's Relief Fund, while Mr. Tilak lauded the initiative of the previous government headed by Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy for instituting awards for services rendered by technicians.