Cinema theatres remain shut in Andhra, Telangana for second day

Cinema theatres in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh remained shut for the second consecutive day on Saturday (3 March) over the issue of Virtual Print Fee (VPF).

About 2,000 theatres in the two Telugu states were not screening movies in response to the shutdown-call given by the South Indian Film Producers' Council.

Some multiplexes on Saturday (2 March) screened English and Hindi movies but there were no shows of Telugu films. Two Telegu films were scheduled to be released on 2 March — Ira and Khaleefa. While Ira was postponed to 3 March, Khaleefa has been pushed to 9 March.

Cinema theatres in other southern states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala also remained closed to demand reduction of VPF.

The joint action committee formed by the producers from all of the southern states has declared that the shutdown will continue till the Digital Service Providers (DSPs) reduce VPF for regional language films.

The council said there will be no screening of films in all the theatres till DSPs bring down the VPF and eventually withdraw it as they have done for English movies.

Meanwhile, DSPs have called the leaders of the joint action committee for talks to sort out the issue.

The producers and distributors claim that the DSPs were charging Rs22,500 as VPF, per screen, causing huge losses to them. They informed that the DSPs were also charging a hefty fee for trailers and advertisements.