The Tamil film industry is in a crisis: barring big budget, star-driven projects, movies are unable to find an adequate number of screens, leaving hundreds of producers in a tight corner.
In an effort to find a breakthrough, filmmaker Cheran, whose film, ‘J.K. Enum Nanbanin Vaazhkai’, is ready but unreleased since last December, launched C2H (Cinema To Home). The business initiative, which proposes to simultaneously release movies on internet, DVDs, mobile phones, set-top boxes and DTH platforms, was launched in the presence of industry bigwigs at Kamarajar Arangam on Monday.
The event began with an audiovisual that investigated the reasons for the crisis, listing a number of problems such as piracy, high costs of going to the cinema, convenience of watching movies at home, among others.
Amidst widespread scepticism if the concept of simultaneous release on several platforms — which was fiercely opposed when actor Kamal Haasan attempted something similar for ‘Vishwaroopam’ — would be embraced by theatre owners, industry bigwigs such as Bharathi Raja, K.S. Ravi Kumar and Keyar, president of Tamil Nadu Film Producer’s Council, came together to support the initiative.
Ruminating on the state of the industry, Mr. Cheran pointed out that almost half the movies that were censored last year couldn’t find an adequate number of screens.
“Thanks to digital technology, the number of films produced has been increasing every year. However, this has also reduced the demand as the audience have more options every Friday. Out of hundreds of movies releasing every year, not more than a handful of films are profitable,” he says.
Apart from roping in cable operators across the State as distributors, Mr. Cheran said that the company would also tie up with DTH companies and explore other avenues. “This wouldn’t affect business of theatre owners and distributors. Piracy has affected cinema and this is the best way to overcome it,” he said.
K.S. Ravi Kumar, who also spoke, said: “We cannot fight technology, we have to embrace it.”
The operations would start from next month, said Ms. Nivedha of C2H. She further added that five movies, including Cheran’s ‘J.K. Enum Nanbanin Vazhkai’ and Viddharth’s ‘Aal’, would be distributed by C2H.
