The powers that be in the Bengali film industry are crying foul over being left in the lurch by theatre owners in favour of their big brother, Bollywood.
An irate group of Bengali artistes, like superstars Dev, Prosenjit, filmmaker Srijit Mukerji and others, has written to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee complaining against the malice meted out to them.
According to media reports, whenever a Hindi film clashes with its Bengali counterpart, theatre owners put their bet on the former, causing irreparable losses to Bengali films.
In fact, the tiff between the Bengali film industry and theatre owners has been dragging on for a while with no solution in sight.
Senior member of the Mamata Cabinet, Aroop Biswas, is slated to sit with the stakeholders on August 7 at Nandan in Kolkata to draw out a rapprochement.
Incidentally, Yash Raj Films’ ‘War 2′ starring Hrithik Roshan and Junior NTR will be clashing with the much-awaited Bengali film ‘Dhumketu’ that brings together the hit Jodi of Dev and Subhashree Ganguly.
According to the buzz, distributors of War 2 have refused to share shows with Dhumketu, much to the chagrin of Tollygunge. Dhumketu will hit the theatres on August 14, and War 2 on August 15.
Producers and directors back in Bengal have taken offence to the bias toward Bollywood that has more often than not pushed local films to the brink.
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Now it remains to be seen if the intervention of the state government can help the warring parties bury the hatchet.
