Shootings in the Telugu film industry will resume from 1st September. Upon a request made by the Active Telugu Film Producers Guild, the Film Chamber of Commerce had stopped all film shootings from 1st August. The main bone of contention was the astronomically high fees charged by actors, directors and technicians.
Although stars and technicians refused to bring down their prices, the boycott of shootings had to be called off as actor-producer Nandamuri Balakrishna (in picture) and other influential persons of the Telugu film industry threatened to resume shooting soon. Rather than cut a sorry picture of an undivided industry, the Guild decided to permit resumption of film shootings with effect from 1st September. In fact, some producers have been allowed to resume their shootings from the coming weekend itself.
The only purpose the month-long boycott has served is that producers will henceforth not give their films for streaming on OTT platforms before at least eight weeks from their premiere theatrical release. It has also been agreed that producers will not pay Virtual Print Fee (VPF) charges to digital providers. But the main issue of stars taking a cut in their remunerations remains unresolved.