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Bollywood frets as India's Covid-19 rules keeps veterans off movie sets

By Vikram Roy in New Delhi - RFI
India  Vishal Pandya
JUL 19, 2020 LISTEN
© Vishal Pandya

India has permitted its domestic film industry to resume work, but an age ban on movie sets is threatening the livelihood of veterans who have helped movies score at the box office and kept Bollywood in profit for decades.

The authorities in Mumbai, capital of Maharashtra state, banned cast and crew over 65 years – and also below 10 years – and insisted on medical services at filming sites because of the coronavirus pandemic, which has infected more than one million people in India.

The Indian Films and Television Directors' Association (IFTDA) said it has asked the authorities to withdraw the ban, calling it “inhuman”.

“If the clause is there, it should be followed by other industries also. Ninety percent of (Indian) politicians should retire,” IFTDA President Ashoke Pandit told RFI.

“It is creating a lot of complications for the industry. How can you take away my right to live? It is basically inhuman, it is not right,” Pandit said.

Movie-makers resumed work in Mumbai, India's entertainment hub, after a three-month break since March but said they may have to re-write their scripts because of the law.

“Movies are age-centric. This way no one can make films,” director Ujjwal Chatterjee told RFI.

Authorities have also made face masks compulsory in Mumbai, which has posted 100,000 infections.

“It is going to be impossible to make movies with characters wearing masks,” Chatterjee added.

The ruling also upset others in Mumbai, where 77-year-old Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan, who has acted in around 200 films in a career spanning five decades, has tested positive for Covid-19.

TV producer Sushant Singh alleged Bollywood had been singled out as no such guidelines existed for other sectors.

“For the past four months our people are sitting idle at home,” said Singh.

No more hugs and kisses


The guidelines also prohibits hugs and kisses in film under production, which actors will be more than happy about, according to director Vishal Pandya.

“Until a vaccine comes out, actors won't do it,” said Pandya, who is known for his raunchy productions, adding that the coronavirus was “acting like a censor board which does not allow intimacies”. 

Film critics such as Vinod Mirani said Bollywood must learn to work with the pandemic without being too fussy.

“Crew and cast could work in shifts,” he suggested. “That way, all will get some work – which is better than doing nothing.”

Producers have long worked with skeleton crews while shooting abroad even before the pandemic, Mirani added.

Bollywood, which produces Hindi-language movies, jotted up box office revenue losses of 114 millions euros between March and May, according to one estimate.

Industry A-listers have largely ignored the restrictions, but they have spread disquiet among thousands of poorly-paid technicians, make-up artistes and script-writers who are considered the backbone of Bollywood.

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