Recently, the Telugu Film Producer’s Council (TFPC) announced that there will be no new movie releases and shootings from March 1, 2018. The TFPC’s ad-hoc committee took this decision after it failed to come to a consensus with the Digital Service Providers or DSPs (UFO, Qube, PXD and Scrabble etc) over the charging of Virtual Print Fee (VPF) and other grave issues.

During Mental Madhilo’s success meet yesterday, senior producer Suresh Babu warned of a huge agitation in near future if the DSPs don’t co-operate without understanding the serious issues the producers are facing. However, Suresh Babu also hoped that the issue will be resolved amicably.

Suresh Babu went on to explain that after the age-old film projection system became obsolete around 10 years ago, all the theaters across the world were equipped with the digital projection technology offered by the DSPs.

The Digital Cinema Initiative (DCI) allowed the DSPs to collect the Virtual Print Fee (VPF) from producers and distributors for only the first 5 years to recollect their investments. “All the DSPs in America and around the world followed the DCI’s rule, but not in India where the local DSPs are still charging the VPF. It is not fair. We have to fight and this will be an ongoing battle and steamroll into an active agitation,” Suresh Babu said.

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