Things have gone from bad to worse as far as Mollywood
or what we call content rich Malayalam filmdom. It was a few months back that
my pal Satish known as Charles in film circles told me that a film Producer
that he acquainted in Delhi was coming to meet me to sell his film in Tamil. He
produced a film Nerariyum
Nerathu in Malayalam.
It was in second week in theatres and that too in limited shows. Here is where
the most familiar story that we film journalists have seen unwinds
A mediator
in Chennai has promised Producer Chidambaram that if a screening can be arranged, it can be
bought by Tamil distributors. So the question was if close to Rs 1 lakh was
spend , will it bring in distributors ? This was for screening of Malayalam
print. As no conclusive answers came it was shelved. Next a guy pops up to say
that he will screen the film in Karnataka and other parts of India . Catch is
send money to an account for expenses.
The deal boiled down to screening in Bangalore and money was send. Nothing
happens. Chidambaram departs back to Delhi ( Gurugoan I think). Here too he is
not left alone. A guy calls and says spend Rs 3 lakhs for dubbing in Tamil and
you can make Rs 75 lakhs through satellite- OTT – theatre sales. If so Why not buy the rights from us and you make
money asks Chidambaram. End of discussion.
The OTT guys
it seems say that at least two weeks the film should run in theatres for them
to buy. So what happens is that the films run to empty houses and distributors
pay to keep the film collection from dropping below the cut off mark of theatre
to take it off. Who pays for this artificially injected oxygen ? Produce off
course. If this is the case post prelease, During Production, the manager or
controller takes the money but has no accounts to show. Another area is Digital
marketing and here yet another round of guys who promise good reviews to place
in Wikipedia emerge and they too vanish once they see money.
Why I am
provoked to write this account of Chidambaram and his journey as film Producer
? He calls from Delhi and says that a
guy said give Rs 2 lakhs and we will see that it is streaming in Manorama Max.
Imagine paying money to get it on OTT ! I told Chidambaram to take the phone
and talk directly to channel. It worked. Film is streaming from November 1 and
as of date it is third in top 10 of channel list.
Producers
Association to Kerala Chamber should form a mechanism by which they register genuine
OTT dealers- mediators and take action on erring Production managers.
Chidambaram is an ex Central Government employee and it was PF money and
personal loan that went towards funding. If a right course correction initiated
by Chamber was in place, Kerala would have seen more Chidamabarams. The case of
NRI Producer is even more worse. Actor-
Director who curates film for NRI
producer tells at the outset that it will not run in theatres but will
make your family name big and you a toast of the Malayalali Association that
you are a member. NRI comes as they want
to leave behind something that the next generation can be Proud about. But now
this Actor- Director is pissed off. He says that by Chamber or Theatre Owners
putting out real collections, many NRI Producers have stopped coming. One of
the NRI Producer who directed a film with this Actor as hero had a long tale to tell about her not so sweet experience.
- Cast: Abhiram Radhakrishnan, Shibla
Farah, Swathi
Das Prabhu, Rajesh Azhikodan, Swetha Vinod, Nisanth SS, Aparna Vivek
- Director: Renjith Venugopal
- Genre: Romantic Drama
- Runtime: 1 hour and 32 minutes
- Streaming Date: November 1, 2025
- Where to watch: ManoramaMAX
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