Date:15/07/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/07/15/stories/2007071554400600.htm

Andhra Pradesh

Newsreel goes off screen

K.M. Dayashankar

Documentaries supplied by State are ignored

Short films highlight State programmes and achievements
Screening short film requires more manpower

KARIMNAGAR: Gone are the days when movie-lovers watched screening documentary films along with advertisements before the beginning of a feature film in cinema halls.

A majority of cinema halls have stopped screening 35-mm short films and documentaries produced by the State Government, the Films Division and other agencies.

Even in Karimnagar, cinema operators are directly screening feature films and do not showing the documentaries and short films supplied by the Government free of cost.

The Andhra Pradesh State Film and Television and Theatre Development Corporation limited produces 35-mm short films highlighting achievements of State Government and other development programmes for screening in cinema halls, but all in vain, as all the short film boxes supplied to cinema halls through the District Public Relations Officer and film distributors have been sent back without being screened.

Short films produced

The Government has so far produced short films of two to three minutes duration on ‘Indira Prabha’, ‘Sujala Sambaram’, ‘Jandapi Harithandra’, ‘Janani Suraksha’, ‘Ravi Maradu’, ‘Pedarikampi Mahila Vijayam’, ‘Praja patham’, ‘Pavala vaddi’, ‘Jalamanam Bhavathi’, etc. this year.

The short films were supplied to the DPRO for distribution to cinema theatres on rotation basis so as to cover all of them.

The Film Development Corporation has also asked the cinema hall managements to compulsorily screen the 35-mm short films without keeping them aside.

But on the contrary, the cinema hall operators collected the short film boxes from the Information and Public Relations Department and left them unopened.

The cinema hall operators in Karimnagar town argue that the screening of short film requires additional manpower as the films are made of 35-mm and consume more power.

No patience to watch

They also say that people do not have the patience to watch the short films and they raise hue and cry in the halls demanding them to screen the movie.

Some cinema-lovers, however, say that they are missing the traditional ‘newsreel’ in black and white and also other short-films depicting developmental works.