Nepal Film Producers’ Association, an umbrella organisation of Nepali movie producers, is set to go on strike citing problems in box office regulations and inequalities in share distribution with film halls. Organising a closed session meeting last Saturday, the producer’s association formulated detailed plans on the planned protests. They were made public on Monday.

After a 42-day long strike in 2003, the Film Producers’ Association and Nepal Motion Picture Association, a union of film hall owners, had reached an agreement to divide the total income of movie screening (deductive of VAT) among the two parties, respectively, in approximately 60:40 ratio.

“The agreement on share distribution has not been implemented properly,” Aakash Adhikari, director and the chairman of the producer’s association, said. Currently, the share of the film screening is divided on the proportion of 50/50 on the first week, which decreases on the consecutive weeks to 42.5 per cent (to producers), on the second week, and then to 37.5 and if a film still screens on the fourth week, the producers can only claim 30 per cent of the total revenue. Adhikari further adds, “The producers, who invest the total 100 percent in a movie, have the least share of income today. This is not how our industry will develop. So our agenda is to rectify this discrepancy and establish a transparency between the producers and the hall owners.” Adhikari further says that the agreement was set to be applied in terms of every promotional ventures, from the making of trailers to posters. But this hasn’t happened.

The Producers’ Association has given the deadline of May 15 (Jestha 1) for film halls to commit to the earlier agreement. Else, the producers plan to halt the screening of any movie, Nepali or otherwise.

The closed session meeting at the Baneshwor-based Hotel Aryal witnessed presence of two different factions of producers. The faction led by producer Nawal Khadka has put forward another demand about increasing the cut to 70:30. The meeting was attended by many notable actors and producers who also appreciated the government’s decision to introduce box office, a digital ticketing system. They vowed to help government on its implementation.

The Film Development Board of Nepal has issued a statement warning the hall owners who have yet to come onboard the newly-announced box office regulations that seeks to make the tabulation of ticket sales transparent. The provision for box office implementation was included in a 2071 National Film Industry Bill and the board plans to punish all the film hall owners who do not commit to the plan, as per the regulation of 2026 act on Film Production, Distribution, and Screening. The newly elected board chairperson Nikita Poudel said that implementing the concept of box office was one of the key targets of her first 100 days at office.

If all goes well, the box office regulating system will be in place as a trial from May 15 in Kathmandu’s multiplexes, and will come into a full-fledged operation from July 17 in all film halls around the Valley and around the country from February, 2015.