Kolkata: Recent meeting minutes from the state’s information and cultural affairs department outline a framework for producer crew freedom. But, technicians said, the matter was still under discussion rather than it being a final order. Even so, they maintained an open, non-confrontational stance, focused on “what was best for the industry”.“We had discussions over how producers will have full freedom to determine the number and categories of technicians needed for a production, based on requirements,” an official said. “The minutes of the meeting say guilds and federations will be prohibited from insisting on a certain number of technicians, even if it’s beyond actual needs, or from dictating the specific technicians to be hired. Additionally, producers will be permitted to use multi-skilled technicians whenever feasible. But no order has yet been passed.”The minutes also mentioned that the guild system would be strengthened to properly identify all workers under a transparent framework, ensuring no one was barred from working due to delay in obtaining a guild card. Guilds must establish simple, transparent and time-bound enrollment mechanisms while facilitating immediate membership and card issuance for newcomers and graduates from recognised film institutes, such as FTII, SRFTI and Rupkala Kendra without, creating artificial employment barriers.Producer Firdausul Hasan told TOI that this freedom for producers to select the crew was discussed at the Aug 16 meeting that he attended. The meeting of industry stakeholders was held in the presence of Mithun Chakraborty, Purnima Chakraborty, Jeet Madnani, Rudranil Ghosh and Roopa Ganguly among others. Another follow-up meeting was held this week. “We discussed that producers, who bring in the money, must get full freedom to determine the number and categories of technicians, based on project needs. Tollywood will prosper if producers get this freedom. This will increase the number of projects and generate more work,” Hasan said.But makeup artist Somnath Kundu said technicians were currently prioritising upcoming election dates and that this was “not the final decision”. “The matter is right now on the discussion table,” Kundu said. Pointing out elections for all 26 guilds and the federation president’s post were slated for Oct 31 and Nov 1, Kundu said this crucial issue would be addressed by federation stakeholders, along with Mithun, Rudranil, Roopa, producers and the I&CA department once the elections concluded. Stating producers expressed their own opinions, he said, “We, too, have our say. We will accept what is best for the industry.”
