New body formed for ‘active Tamil film producers’

Association not in conflict with the existing council, says Bharathirajaa

In a bid to represent the interests of ‘active producers’ in the Tamil Film Producers Council (TFPC), veteran filmmaker Bharathirajaa and other ‘active’ producers have announced that they have formed the Tamil Film Active Producers Association and asked other producers to join the new association.

In 2019, the State government appointed a Special Officer to administer TFPC, which was previously led by actor Vishal Krishna, after the Inspector General of Registration found that the association’s office-bearers had violated certain provisions of the Tamil Nadu Societies Registration Act.

Sources backing Mr. Bharathirajaa admitted that they had to form a new association as TFPC was being impeded by members who had joined it a long time ago but were no longer actively producing films. The filmmaker, in a statement, reiterated that the new association was not in conflict with the existing one, which would remain as the parent body and they would continue to be its members.

“The new Association has been formed to protect the interest of active film producers, whose requirement for producing, marketing, distributing and managing their film business requires a higher focus and attention. This is not new and has already been implemented in the Hindi and Telugu film industries; a separate active film producers’ association exists and operates successfully with only limited active producers while a regular film producers’ council also operates there smoothly,” Mr. Bharathirajaa said. He said there was a need to get back into active film business in the post COVID-19 scenario and safeguard the interests of active producers He added that there was a need to represent the interests of the producers to the State government to resume shooting and removing local body taxes.

“The management team shall be formed only after we enroll active film producers,I appeal to the members of Tamil Film Producers Council, not consider this new association as a conflict or a breakup but as a necessity of the active and current film producers under the current trying situation and request them to support the same,” he said.