The impasse at a Tollygunge studio, where set construction for an upcoming serial was stopped midway, continued on Wednesday.
The incomplete set at Dassani Studio on Moore Avenue looked like it had on Tuesday, empty.
“I went to the studio in the morning and spent over a couple of hours. But no technician turned up,” said Srijit Roy, the director of the serial who has been accused of making derogatory remarks against technicians, an allegation he has denied.
“Around 20 people were building the set. They are contractual workers. No work means no pay for them. They are being misguided,” he said.
Workers owing allegiance to the Federation of Cine Technicians and Workers of Eastern India have stopped coming to the set from Monday.
Roy is a member of the Directors Association of Eastern India. The federation represents 26 guilds made up of persons who are part of a shoot. Technically, the directors guild is also part of the federation.
The directors’ guild has rallied behind Roy and called out the federation for trying to impose its diktat without any jurisdiction.
Till Wednesday, the impasse was limited to just one studio. But a similar standoff had crippled shooting in Tollygunge for days last year.
Members of the directors’ guild held a meeting in Tollygunge late on Wednesday to decide the course of action.
After the meeting that went on for more than three hours, members of the directors’ guild issued an ultimatum to the federation.
“If the federation does not respond by 7pm on Thursday, if the impasse is not resolved by then, we will announce our next course of action,” said Sudeshna Roy, secretary of the directors’ guild.
On Tuesday, Srijit Roy went live on Facebook to share his ordeal. He alleged that he has not received any formal communication from the federation about any wrongdoing.
On Wednesday, Joydeep Mukherjee, director of the popular OTT series Eken Babu, also went live on Facebook, sharing a similar ordeal.
The work for his upcoming series for an OTT platform was supposed to have started on January 27. But it has been stalled because of the high-handedness of the federation, he alleged.
“In keeping with the norms, the production house had sent an intimation letter to the federation on January 23. However, on January 24, we received an email stating that their technicians had some discrepancies, and were asked to attend a meeting to resolve the issue. We agreed and mailed them on January 24 that we were ready for the meeting. Despite multiple follow-ups from January 24 to January 27, we received no response. On January 30, we were informed that a meeting was scheduled for February 3,” Mukherjee said in the live stream.
“Although our representatives waited for a long time for the meeting at the technician studio, the meeting did not take place,” he said.
“I was forced to stop the shooting from today. Despite advance bookings for the shooting locations, everything had to be cancelled. I had to inform all my actors that the shooting was stalled, resulting in a financial loss of ₹8.5 to 9 lakhs.”