Nagarjuna is MAA chief
Noted actor Nagarjuna was unanimously elected as the president of Telugu Movie Artistes Association. Venkatesh is the new vice-president. Character actor AVS remains the general secretary, while ex-president Murali Mohan has been nominated as honorary president. Thespian actor ANR will be the advisor of the association. The new body was elected for a two-year term at a recent general body meeting.

Immediately after taking over charge, Nagarjuna announced that he will donate a small percentage of his remuneration from all his films to the corpus fund of the Movie Artistes Association.
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Extend bank finance to South: TN plea
The Tamil Film Producers Council and the South India Film Chamber of Commerce met Union minister Chenji Ramchandran in Chennai and pleaded that the new schemes like bank finance announced by Union minister Sushma Swaraj should not be confined to Mumbai producers and to see that the directives were also made applicable to the producers in the south.

The council chief Ibrahim Rowther, SIFCC chief Kayaar and other office- bearers of both the associtations, who met the minister, pointed out that usually many benefits announced in Delhi were availed of by the Mumbai producers and not made available to the south producers. In the case of bank finance to films the, Bank of India in Mumbai has earmaked a branch to deal with film finance and many film producers have started approaching it but no such facility was available in the south, they pointed out. The minister assured them about convening a meeting to discuss this issue.

Dev Anand felicitated
Veteran actor Dev Anand was presented the Hero of the Century award by veteran director K Balchander at a glittering function of 20th Cinema Express awards in Chennai.

Speaking on the ocassion, Dev Anand advised the young artistes to think to come out with new ideas. “When I work I am a loner” said Dev. He later on presented awards to Tamil best actor Ajith. Subash Ghai was honoured for his 25 years contribution to the film industry.

The best actress award in Tamil went to Simran, while Jothika bagged the best debutant actress award. Vikram was adjudged the recepient of Best critics award. Ramesh Aravind got the best actor award of Kannada films while Chiranjeevi and Ramya cornered the best actor and best actress awards respectively, of Telugu films. Actor Jayram and actress Divya Mani bagged the best actor and best actress awards respectively of Malayalam films for the year 1999-2000. Chairman of New Indian Express Group, Manoj Kumar Sonthalia welcomed the gathering.

TN film artistes join SIFCC
In a significant move, top film stars of Tamil Nadu like Vijaykanth, Sarath Kumar and Napolean have joined the South India Film Chamber of Commerce (SIFCC) in the producers category. In the context of the ongoing tussle between the artistes associtation and the producers council, the artistes joining SIFCC as producers signals the move to rope in support of the SIFCC in the dispute.

The producers council, which claims to be the sole recognised body of the Tamil producers has also recently been singnatory to the agreement between the producers and certain crafts of the film industry. AL Alagappan, of the producers council, who fought the SIFCC election has filed a case challenging the election of Kayaar as President. Meanwhile, sources in the trade said that a compromise between the warring artistes and producers group has been chalked out and, barring a few points, a soloution was in sight. The ban by producers of no shooting of films for three months except for films already launched and had five days shooting is likelyto be lifted. Bala’s Nanda which was launched a month ago but did not start shooting, is now ready to do so with Surya and Laila as heroine, awaiting the council’s green signal. Similarly, Dost starring Sarath Kumar and to be directed by SA Chandrasekar was launched earlier but it too got stalled since it could not show five days of shooting.

IPRS doles out Rs 75 lakhs royalties in south
The Indian Performing Right Society Ltd (IPRS) has collected around Rs 75 lakhs as royalty from south establishments for the music played and has decided to distribute the same to the composers, lyricists and singers in the south. Speaking to the press in Chennai, Sanjay Tandon, director general IPRS said that in the south there was not much resistance and many of the establishments that used music to entertain patrons paid off when they were contacted by the society. But in cases where the resistance came, it was in the form of legal injunctions. In the north, the offenders who failed to recognise IPRS had to be taken to court. Recently, the Delhi High Court issued injunctions to hotels and stores including the cottage industries emporium and they had to pay the licence fees with interest and penalty, said Tandon.
In the south, the maximum reveue came from chennai and next was Hyderabad and Secunderabad, while Kerala was the lowest. At present, the IPRS was operating from Chennai with three inspectors and soon plan to expand with more staff. The volume of lyrics written, music titles released and details of music directors were recorded in a data bank and from the log book of AIR and TV channels were used to arrive at a ratio at which the royalties were distributed. Tandon said in September they distributed around Rs 2.5 crores as royalties. He added that the figure when he joined in 1990-91 was a meagre Rs 20 lakhs and at present stood at Rs 5 crores thanks tto the zeal and drive of his field staff and inspectors.

CD Rom on Sivaji Ganesan
Sivaji-Prabhu Charities Trust which undertakes many charitable activities have decided to bring out a CD Rom and a book on the thespian. The trust has appealed to everyone who know or have any matieral that they could contribute for the biography. It could be sent to Dr. Sivaji Ganesan Biography Research unit in Chennai at Sivaji Films office. Screen former lensman Kumtakar’s collection of Sivaji’s public funtions in Mumbai already form a part of the biography, said Ramkumar, the eldest son of the thespian. He added that many rare photos, documents and old paper clippings are pouring into the office.

Yet another 3D from Navodaya
Navodaya Films of Kochi (Kerala) were the first to come out with a 3D film My Dear Kuttichathan which created a sensation in 1984. This was followed by many films in the 3D format but none clicked that way like Kuthichathan which was directed by Jijo and cinematographed by Ashok Kumar. The same production house and producer Appachan have decided to come out with a new film and the shooting is expected to commence shortly. The film will have a 6-track digital audio, computer graphics and will be made in Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam.

AP