Lights, camera, no action

Express News Service

KOCHI: For  Santhosh Thiruvallam, life has played out like a tragic movie on loop  since the pandemic brought film production to a grinding halt a year  ago. Even at the best of times, his life as a production boy has been a  far cry from the glitz associated with the tinsel town. He and his ilk were the invisible lot on film sets with their hard work and toil to keep the production running without any unhitch often getting overlooked.

Left jobless now, Santhosh longs to return to a shooting location that  has been his life and livelihood for over a decade. Reinventing himself  as a casual labourer for his house under construction, solely to save  labour cost, Santhosh has no clue when the din of a film set will return  to his life. “Production boys like me are the first  to reach the  shooting sets and last to leave. Earlier, our day used to start as early  as 4am leaving  black tea by the doors of the crew members’ rooms. The system has changed now. The tea is now served on the sets and, hence, we  need to be ready at the shooting set only by 6am,” he said. 

During pre-Covid times, production boys used to get Rs 1,165 as bata for a day’s work.“With  some belt-tightening, we could earn around Rs 2 lakh a year. That  income has been wiped away all of a sudden,” said Santhosh. “With no  film shoots, most of my friends are looking for other jobs. We have to survive somehow,” he said.Vinodh Chottanikkara, a production keep who used to manage food on film sets, said the relief kits and financial support extended by  the Film Employees Federation of Kerala (FEFKA) to film workers have  come as a big relief. 

“I have been in the industry for the  past 26 years. This is the first time that film works have got locked  down. This is a crisis and we can only hope that the entertainment  sector will bounce back strongly from the pandemic,” said Vinodh. He  said production boys, unit  workers, lighting boys, drivers and art assistants were the worst hit  and are looking for temporary jobs to keep themselves afloat.

During  the first wave of Covid last year, FEFKA had provided financial support  to workers in the film industry who were struggling to overcome the  hardships. The association has decided to extend the same this time, including financial support of Rs 50,000 each to the families of film workers who died due to Covid-19.

“A lot of people in the unorganised sector such as theatre staff, canteen boys, security guards at theatre complexes, cleaning staff and ticket agents are jobless now. The theatres  opened for just three months in between, albeit with 50%  occupancy. But things are back to square one with the second wave of the pandemic,” said Kerala Film Distributors Association president Ziyad Koker.

He said some of the theatre owners are paying 50% of the salary to their workers, while those who recently constructed cinema halls by taking bank loans are finding it difficult to repay the money.The crisis has spared none and the industry, which used to thrive on dreams, seems to have descended into a nightmare.

CRISIS SPARES NONE  

A lot of people in the unorganised sector such as theatre staff, canteen boys, security guards at theatre complexes, cleaning staff and ticket agents have been jobless for almost an entire year, said Kerala Film Distributors Association president Ziyad Koker. Those who recently constructed cinema halls by taking bank loans are finding it difficult to repay the money, he said.