SHOREY OUSTED, SHAKTI INSTALLED

New lease of life for Producers Council

It’s been a case of rapid intrigue and wholesale drama for control of the producers’ bodies and the 60-year-old Indian Motion Picture Distributors Association. Hectic behind-the-scenes manipulations have led to a restructuring of the trade bodies.

On October 10, KD Shorey was ousted and Shakti Samanta who had quit from the executive committee within days of the IMPPA elections, when his group failed to muster the majority, was installed as president following a requisition meeting.

Prior to that, the Film Producers Guild of India had walked out of the Film Makers Combine as its members did not wish to have any dealings with the KD Shorey group. This has led to a wholesale restructuring of the trade bodies. While the Film Makers Combine is left with the IMPPA and the Western India Film Producers Association (which have very few active producers), the Association of Motion Picture & TV Programme Producers and the Guild will join hands in resurrecting and re-activising the defunct All India Film Producers Council. The formal meeting to activise the Council will take place soon after the new governments are installed at the Centre and states.

The AMPTPP issued a press release stating it will work in tandem with each other and revive the dormant All India Film Producers Council. At a meeting on October 3, attended by Pahlaj Nihalani, president of the AMPTPP, Surinder Kapoor, president of the FPGI, J Om Prakash, Yash Chopra, Yash Johar, Amit Khanna, AG Nadiadwala, Bhappi Sonie, Ramesh Taurani, Ratan Jain, Vikas Mohan, Kiran Shantaram and secretaries Supran Sen of the Film Federation of India and Anil Nagrath, of the AMPTPP, it was decided that both associations will have no official connection with the FMC, which in any case, has lost all relevance as two of its four constituents have already resigned and only non-active members remain with it, making it redundant.

Dimpy Ramdayal of the IMPPA said he had prevailed upon Shorey to resign from its presidentship to make room for Shakti Samanta since the Guild had agreed to return to the FMC if Samanta was installed. Preeti Saptru, Sushma Shiromani and Babloo Pachisia who had not signed the requisition also joined the Shakti Group in electing him.

Anil Ganguly, of the Samanta faction, said the biggest need of the hour for the production sector was the unity of the players. “For the sake of unity, somebody will have to sacrifice his own interests,” he said, implying that Shorey should step down from office. The history of IMPPA is full of intrigue, with presidents and committee members leaving the body in disgust after harrassment from troublemakers. First, Mehboob Khan quit the IMPPA as its president when producers like Bakshi Jung Bahadur and R Chandra made life difficult for him. History repeated itself for the Bimal Roy group, which had to resign en-masse after three years in office. Later, Nargis Dutt also had to quit as IMPPA president when the same troublemakers, joined by IS Johar made it impossible for her to function. Then, within three months of J Om Prakash’s election as president, he, too, had to quit in disgust.

The final offshoot of it all is that there are now two powerblocs among the producers - the Council and the FMC.

SM Desai