Last week, the Tamil Film Producers Council has placed 14 demands to be fulfilled by Tamil Nadu State and the Union Governments in order to save the dwindling fortunes of Tamil film producer. The list of demands included a range of issues from stricter measures to tackle piracy to increasing the ticket rates in Tamil Nadu theatres. The Council had also announced that these demands are not fulfilled, they will go on an indefinite strike from June 1, 2017.

It has been a week since the demands were announced and there is no development. Neither the state government nor the centre have reacted in any manner to these demands.

Now we learn from reliable sources that the Producers Council is stubborn in its decision to go ahead with the strike from June 1st, if the demands are fulfilled. If the strike is announced all the shooting, editing, post-production. audio release, movie release of Tamil films will come to a stand still.

In the history of Tamil cinema, such a strike happened in the mid of 1990s due to the conflict between Film producers and film employees belonging to FEFSI. The strike lasted for months and many employees did not have any job opportunity during the strike period as all the shootings and other film related works were cancelled.The Government had to intervene and support the employees by giving free rice to them.

It is feared that such a situation will arise again if the strike begins. However Kollywood insiders feel that the issues affecting Tamil Cinema are so serious that such drastic steps are inevitable.

In the event of the strike prolonging for at least a few weeks,the release of Thala Ajith's 'Vivegam' scheduled to hit the screens in August, Sivakarthikeyan's 'Velaikkaran', scheduled for a September release, Ilayathalapathy Vijay's 'Thalapathy 61' scheduled to hit the screens for Diwali festival in October 2017 may be affected. There are many other films scheduled to release in the next few months but it is these three films that are highly anticipated by the fans in the near future.

But the insiders say that the strike plan will be withdrawn even if the Government agrees to fulfil at least the most important demands if not all.