No technicians at shoot of Rahool Mukherjee film despite Directors' Guild clarification

Kolkata: A day after the Directors' Guild allowed film maker Rahool Mukherjee to work as a creative producer in an upcoming film, no technician turned up at a city studio on the first day of shooting of the film produced by a big production house.

The development comes despite the Federation of Cine Technicians and Workers of Eastern India (FCTWEI) on Friday clarifying that Mukherjee is free to work as creative producer of the film but not as a director for three months.

Federation president Swarup Biswas had said earlier that Mukherjee was being debarred from directing films for three months for violating norms by visiting Bangladesh for shooting patch shots of another film without intimation to the federation and taking the help of the technicians in Dhaka.

"Neither the federation nor the Directors' Guild was informed by Mukherjee about his visit to Bangladesh for shooting a film, which is against the rule. But there is nothing personal against Rahul. He is a good friend of us. The decision was taken connectively in the interest of industry and its stakeholders, of which technicians are an important part," Biswas had told PTI earlier.

The untitled film starred Prosenjit Chatterjee, Anirban Bhattacharya and Priyanka Sarkar for which shooting was slated to begin on July 27. The Dhaka shoot which landed Mukherjee in trouble was related to another project financed by a different producer.

Production house SVF which was behind the project had stated Soumik Haldar would now direct the film while Mukherjee would be the creative producer.

However, as Mukherjee and Haldar were present at Technicians Studio, Tollygunje no technician turned up. Bengali film superstar Prosenjit Chatteree, part of the cast in the film, also turned up and waited in vain.

Director and TMC MLA Raj Chakraborty, filmmaker Kaushik Ganguly and actor Parambrata Chatterjee were among those present at the studio to voice solidarity with Mukherjee.

"This is an insult to every director. We are giving two days' to the federation. If no technician turns up at the shooting even on Sunday, I personally think we (directors) will also stop shooting from Monday. I am making the suggestion to other filmmakers," Chakraborty, an important member of the cultural cell of the ruling dispensation, said.

Ganguly said "the federation cannot dictate how many technicians should be taken for a shoot. We cannot accept any humiliation of a director.

Chatterjee said a day's cancellation of shooting without any proper reason will incur heavy losses for the producer and this is unfortunate.

"There can be grievances, there can be issues. But these can be sorted out through dialogues, without disrupting shoots," he said and expressed hope that better sense will prevail.

Directors' Guild spokesperson Sudeshna Roy said Mukherjee has explained that he had taken some patch shots of a project in Bangladesh for only four days and expressed regret for any misunderstanding.

"After all these developments, the ceasework (of technicians) without any intimation is insulting for a director who gets one-two project in a year after years of planning. The production house which comes forward to back the project also incurs heavy losses and will think twice before going ahead with any project," Roy said.

Mukherjee said "I only want to do the film I have been planning for months. Let all disputes be solved and we can start work." Biswas said he will speak on the issue at an appropriate time.