A desperate move?

I have a lot of things in my mind and since I wasn’t finding enough time to put them down, I thought I can take a look at a current issue. As some would have guessed from the title, it is nothing but the “ban” on release of non-Kannada films for 7 weeks after their release elsewhere. Surprisingly, this ‘ban’ is not from the government but from the film producers association (or whatever it’s called), but seemingly has the tacit support of the government. While the ban, which is from somebody outside the government being implemented, is itself a cause for deep concern, the reasons given for the ban are only more so. This move is supposed to protect the Kannada film industry and give more (captive) market for the Kannada films. I don’t know how they expected everyone to start viewing Kannada films just because other films are not available, rather than do the obvious, view the same other language films through pirated VCDs. The first obvious reaction of this ban has already come with the closure of many theatres in Bangalore. If, god forbid, should the ban become permanent, the net effect would be that most of the theatres which showed non-Kannada films would close down and there would be an increase of piracy for all these films and as a side-effect for the Kannada films too. Thus the producers association seems to have come up with a magical solution which harms both parties. The only reason for such a move could be, I think, desperation. After this ban, I came to know from various press reports that the Kannada film industry is in quite a bad shape. But the solution is to introspect and improve the quality of Kannada films, not these kind of moves which seem to be an acceptance of the poor quality of Kannada films. Of course during the rebuilding period some kind of protection may be required for Kannada films, which can be enforced in a much gentler manner like requiring all theatres to screen a fixed number (which should be judiciously decided) of Kannada films in a year. These kind of moves only end up in making people seeing other language films feeling discriminated against. As an aside, moves like these and some simple things like bus route labels still being in Kannada only, makes me feel that Bangalore is still unable to reconcile itself being a cosmopolitan city. Click here to see how a Kannada filmmaker also feels in the same way (read under sub-heading 'appalled').