KOLKATA, Feb. 5 -- It's deja vu for Tollywood. After a late-night meeting on Wednesday, the Directors' Guild decided to give technicians time till 7 pm on Thursday to return to work on Srijit Roy's serial. If they don't, the directors will again sit for a meeting and decide the further course of action. The deadlock involves members of the Art Setting Guild - part of the Federation of Cine Technicians and Workers of Eastern India - who did not turn up on the sets of Roy at Dasani Studio for the past few days.
On Wednesday, members of the Directors' Guild, including Sudeshna Roy, Anirban Bhattacharya, Raj Chakraborty, Parambrata Chatterjee, Srijit Roy and Joydeep Mukherjee, met to figure out the next move and decided to give the technicians time till Thursday to return to work. The trouble started a few days ago when Roy took to social media to announce that his shoot had come to a sudden halt after technicians did not turn up.
In response, several directors from the Guild visited the set on Tuesday. Over the past month, shoots led by Kaushik Ganguly and Joydeep Mukherjee have also been stalled.
Back in July 2024, director Rahool Mukherjee was blacklisted for filming in Bangladesh without the Federation's approval, leading to a standstill in Tollywood.
That standoff got so intense that directors had to call for a strike. The matter was only resolved after the Chief Minister stepped in, reminding everyone that no artist should be banned or stopped from working and said issues like these should be handled through discussion, not disruption.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.