No takers for low-budget fare
Ever since Mumbai police arrested some ‘blue film’ racketeers, known in film parlance as the makers of ‘bits’, the distribution and exhibition of small-budget films has come to a stand still, according to Popatbhai of Shri Padmavati Pictures. His last release Kali Ki Saugandh, starring Dharmendra, was a miserable flop. He had bought two other films of this genre but he is afraid of releasing them because these films too would meet the same fate at the box-office.

According to Popatbhai, these films used to be made on a shoe-string budget in the range of Rs 10 lakh to Rs 20 lakhs. Two years ago, this new trend in the production of such films began and was in full swing because the distributors, who bought such films at as low a price as Rs 1 lakh to Rs 3 lakhs per territory, used to interpolate them with ‘bits’ which were freely available.

The ‘C’ grade cinema owners, either in the mofussil or semi-urban areas in remote corners, or even in some city areas, found these films a blessing in disguise as they fetched housefull collections. These films were never advertised in newspapers since putting posters outside the cinemas was was more than enough to attract youngsters.

Munnibai, which did business worth crores of rupees in the northern circuit, encouraged a lot of small budget film producers to make such films. Now, all this has stopped. Exhibitors have stopped showing such films and distributors have stopped buying them.

Life after the raids
A cinema house in red light area of Mumbai which used to show such films with interpolated sex scenes without any fear was raided by police three months ago and the license of the cinema hall still stands cancelled. In Mumbai, it has become difficult to release such films because the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has imposed a ban on the display of posters in the streets. Hence, there is no chance of knowing which sex film is about to be released. Even those distributors, who have bought such low budget films, are not releasing them, because, minus the ‘bits’ these films have no market whatsoever. Bhai Thakur could not collect more than 27 per cent business. The reason for it is that films of this type have neither good content to hold audience attention for three hours nor are they technically perfect since they are completed within ten days or so.

Ambedkar film, a winner
The film business community which shied from acquiring a film like Ambedkar is now surprised that the film has done very good business in Mumbai, surpassing the collections of new commercial film releases like Ghaath and Snip. It collected 80 per cent in the city, while in the suburbs it collected 70 per cent.

The film, directed by Jabbar Patel, is released through Shringar Films by Bhagyashri Films, who have bought the film.

Jwalamukhi does well, too
Jwalamukhi is yet another small-budget film which has given good share to its distributors, according to Popatbhai. The film was bought for Rs 20 lakhs but it has already covered half of its price in four weeks. Despite Ramzan, the film collected Rs 95,000 from the Moti cinema. A Mithun Chakraborty starrer, it has a good musical score by Anand Milind.

Meerut downs shutters
While the cinemas in Maharashtra did not proceed on even a one-day token strike to protest against cable piracy, 18 cinemas in Meerut downed shutters for three days to protest against the government’s failure in curbing cable piracy. These cinemas re-opened only when the Uttar Pradesh Government initiated stringent action against cable operators who screened films illegally. The government raided several cable operators and found irregularities. The government licensed 125 cable operators, but in reality more than 140 were found operating, giving 13,000 cable connections against 8000, the number the cable operators had mentioned. The government issued orders banning local news broadcasts and telecast of films and cable advertisements on all networks. This has angered the cable operators, who, in turn have gone on strike to protest against the governmental action.

MSM Desai