FILM INDUSTRY CRISES.
Vishnuvardhan Washed Off His Hands

Report by - CNB             Photos - K.M. VEERESH             Date -11th December  2006

Veteran actor Dr. Vishnuvardhan washed off his hands to announce that the attempts made by him and other top stars of the Kannada film industry to solve the present crisis did not bear result. He was addressing a press conference along with other top stars and the Kannada film producers on Saturday afternoon.

The crisis in the film industry has remained status quo and the production work of new films will not start for another five weeks, as the Dhanurmasa month which is considered in auspicious will start on December 16.

"Our attempt was focused to solve this dispute. Since there were reports in a section of the press that the film stars have not evinced any interest in solving the dispute, we chose to intervene in the matter. But the discussions we had with cine workers ended up without any gains as both producers and cine workers struck to their stated positions’ said Dr. Vishnuvardhan. And even top Kannada film stars washed off their hands from any future interventions in resolution of the imbroglio.

The cine workers are firm in their resolve and have not agreed to work independently without the affiliation of the Okkoota. Dr. Vishnu agreed that the issue has now reached a dead end. He however thought that it was better for a person like Ambareesh who enjoys the confidence of producers and cine workers to intervene quickly in the matter and end the crisis.

"Kannada film producers and cine workers are like our two eyes. We are closer to both workers and producers. We don’t want to take sides' said Dr. Vishnuvardhan.

Other artists like Upendra, Ramesh Arvind, Darshan, Sudeep, Jai Jagadish, Sundar Raj, Mayur Patel and others had participated in the press conference organised by the Kannada film producers association.

Sandesh Nagaraj, President of the Kannada film producers association said that their has been no change on their stand that they can only work with the cine workers if they are coming on their own without the affiliations.

"We have decided to stop activities with regard to new productions only because we are against the autocratic attitude of cine workers organization president Ashok who has stopped the shooting of schedules of many films a number of times' he added.

Veteran producers Sa. Ra. Govindoo, Vice President of the Karnataka Film Chamber of Commerce, K.C.N.Kumar, Secretary of the KFCC, Rockline Venkatesh, K.Manju, S.V.Rajendra Singh Babu were present in the press conference.