LPG woes hit film floors of Tollywood industry
KOLKATA: Come March 17, director Dulal Dey is all set to begin shooting for his second Bengali directorial, ‘Faand’ (The Trap), in Kasba. While any filmmaker would prefer to focus solely on the script before stepping onto the floor, Dey currently has another concern on his mind. A supply crunch of commercial LPG amid the ongoing US-Iran tensions has forced the director to rework the film’s production budget. On Thursday, he spoke with his production manager to reassess the costs. “Our production cost had already been finalised, but this sudden LPG crisis has affected us as well. The production cost is bound to increase,” he said.
On the first day of shooting alone, the film, which stars Ritwick Chakraborty, Anirban Chakrabarti, Isha Saha, Arjun Chakrabarty and Kunal Ghosh, will have more than 300 artistes and technicians on set. “If the LPG crisis doesn’t resolve in the next few days, it will certainly affect our production budget,” added Dey, who earlier directed ‘Aranyar Prachin Probad’.
Meanwhile, young filmmaker duo Suchandra X Vaaniya and Chaandrodoy Pal were shooting on Park Street for their new Bengali film ‘Poroborti Station Begunkodar’. Just two days into the shoot, the production is also feeling the impact of the LPG shortage. Producer
Deepankar Das, who was present on the set on Thursday, said that the shortage has started affecting the floor as well. “But we can’t stop the shooting,” he said.
A staff member of a catering service that supplies food to shooting floors in Tollywood explained that nearly two LPG cylinders are required to prepare lunch for about 150 people. “There’s a crisis in getting cylinders. Distributors are promising delivery, but the waiting period is longer. We are preparing some dishes on induction, but most of the cooking still requires LPG,” he said.
However, the LPG shortage has not significantly affected the shooting of Bengali TV serials so far.
Producer Soumyajit Ganguly of Sun Bangla’s new show ‘Sohage Adore’, currently being shot at Ashok Kannan Studio, said the crisis has not yet reached their floor. One of the heads of the SVF TV divisions also echoed
similar sentiments.
