Tamil Film Producers Association has filed a petition with HC to ban movie reviews for three days post-release. Is this curbing the right to expression? After Suriya’s Kanguva saw a bunch of negative reviews, Tamil Film Producers have issued a strong statement requesting theatre owners to ban fans’ interviews on YouTube channels. Now, the Tamil Film Active Producers Association has filed a writ petition in Madras High Court seeking a ban on movie reviews for three days from its theatrical release.
The TFAPA had filed a case through its counsel Vijayan Subramanian. The association has also sought a direction to the Centre and the State government to frame guidelines to be followed by online film critics while reviewing the newly released films on social media platforms. The writ petition is slated to be heard by Justice S.Sounthar on Tuesday (December 3).
Earlier, Tamil Nadu Producers Council had condemned ‘personal attacks and incitement of hatred in the name of film reviews’ in their four page long statement. The council also claimed that films like Indian 2, Vettaiyan and Kanguva were highly impacted due to YouTube FDFS public reviews.
Tamil Nadu producers demanded a ban on YouTubers in the theatres and the letter also stated, “Critics have every right to review movies. But we request all journalists to write film reviews keeping in mind that hatred towards a film should not be sown in the media because of personal malice. It is imperative that all the associations related to the film industry unite and stop this practice by not encouraging them anymore.”
Before this, in 2023, Kerala was the first state to establish a ban on YouTube reviews for seven days following the release of a film after Mubeen Rauf, director of Aromalinte Adyathe Pranayam, filed a case to ban YouTube reviewers from theatre premises alleging that their negative public opinion videos affect film’s business.
Several big budgeted films like Rajinikanth and Amitabh Bachchan’s Vettaiyan, Kamal Haasan’s Indian 2 and recently, Suriya’s Kanguva have failed miserably at the box office due to huge amount of negative reviews immediately after the film’s release leading producers to suffer huge losses. This has led to a demand for ban on online movie reviews within three days of release in the Tamil film industry.
