A day after the Directors' Guild allowed filmmaker Rahool Mukherjee to work as a creative producer in an upcoming film, no technician turned up at a Kolkata studio on the first day of shooting of the movie produced by a big production house.

The development comes despite the Federation of Cine Technicians and Workers of Eastern India (FCTWEI) on Friday clarifying that Mukherjee is free to work as a creative producer of the film but not as a director for three months.

Federation president Swarup Biswas had said earlier that Mukherjee was being debarred from directing films for three months for violating norms by visiting Bangladesh for shooting patch shots of another movie without intimation to the federation and taking the help of the technicians in Dhaka.

"Neither the federation nor the Directors' Guild was informed by Mukherjee about his visit to Bangladesh for shooting a film, which is against the rule. But there is nothing personal against Rahool. He is a good friend of ours. The decision was made in the interest of the industry and its stakeholders, of which technicians are an important part," Biswas had told PTI earlier.

After an urgent federation meeting on Saturday evening, Biswas told reporters at the studio that while it had been amicably decided earlier that Mukherjee would be the creative producer of the film to be shot from July 27, the call sheet given to them for the shoot referred to Mukherjee as the director and he was seen taking every initiative during the shoot as the de facto director.

"This was seen as violating the spirit of our agreement and we technicians don't want to work under the instruction of Mukherjee who had not taken any technician from Kolkata to complete 10 days of shooting of another film 'Lohu' in Bangladesh. Mukherjee himself had admitted his mistake at the first meeting with the federation and guild earlier in July," Biswas said.

"We also don't wish to stop work in Tollygunge studios as the livelihood of 7,000-8,000 technicians revolve around shootings for films, serials and web series. We had never failed in our commitment. But the fact remains that someone must not undertake shootings in a clandestine manner keeping the local technicians of his project in dark and hiring crew from outside the country," another senior federation member said.

The untitled film starred Prosenjit Chatterjee, Anirban Bhattacharya and Priyanka Sarkar for which shooting was slated to begin on July 27. The Dhaka shoot which landed Mukherjee in trouble was related to another project financed by a different producer.

Production house SVF which was behind the project had stated that Soumik Haldar would now direct the film while Mukherjee would be the creative producer.

However, as Mukherjee and Haldar were present at Technicians Studio, Tollygunge no technician turned up. Bengali superstar Prosenjit Chatterjee, who is part of the cast in the film, also turned up and waited in vain.

Filmmaker and TMC MLA Raj Chakraborty, director Kaushik Ganguly and actor Parambrata Chatterjee were among those present at the studio to voice solidarity with Mukherjee.

"This is an insult to every director. We are giving two days to the federation. If no technician turns up at the shooting even on Sunday, I personally think we (directors) will also stop shooting from Monday. I am making the suggestion to other filmmakers," Chakraborty, an important member of the cultural cell of the ruling dispensation, said.

Ganguly said, "The federation cannot dictate how many technicians should be taken for a shoot. We cannot accept any humiliation of a director." Chatterjee said a day's cancellation of shooting without any proper reason will incur heavy losses for the producer and this is unfortunate.

"There can be grievances, there can be issues. But these can be sorted out through dialogue, without disrupting shoot," he said and expressed hope that better sense will prevail.

Directors' Guild spokesperson Sudeshna Roy said Mukherjee had explained that he had taken some patch shots of a project in Bangladesh for only four days and expressed regret for any misunderstanding.

"After all these developments, the ceasework (of technicians) without any intimation is insulting for a director who gets one or two projects in a year. The production house which comes forward to back the project also incurs heavy losses and will think twice before going ahead with any project," Roy said.

Mukherjee said, "I only want to do the film I have been planning for months. Let all disputes be solved so that we can start work."

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