Kollywood film industry called off the 47-day long strike yesterday.  As the readers might be award, no shoot of Tamil films took place from 01st March till yesterday to protest against the high cost charged for digitizing films by a few digital operators.

The calling off the strike came at the end of tripartite talks held in Chennai involving the digital operators, film producers and the Ministers of Tamil Nadu cabinet.  No new film has released on screen for the past seven weeks, marking an uneasy and an easily forgettable phase in the history of Kollywood.  Even post-production work such as dubbing and editing in respect of upcoming films had remained cancelled.

Theatre-owners were also demanding scrapping of entertainment tax by the Govt. as it would force them to increase fares, which would be a burden on the common man.  Though this issue was resolved some time back, theatre-owners were stilling running empty showas as no new film was releasing and they were just ‘pushing along’ screening old hit films of established satrs.

Taking advantage of this, many foreign language films and non-Tamil films did very well in theatres during this 7-week period.  The tripartite talks involving theatres owners, digital operators and Govt. of Tamil Nadu (represented by I&B Minister Kadambur Raju and Commercial Tax Minister K.C. Veeramani) ended amicably in Chennai yesterday.

A formal announcement is expected to be made within a day or two by Kollywood film fraternity about re-starting suspended shooting schedules and about releasing new films in theatres, preferably from this Friday (20th April).