The City cinema hall owners started sanitising their premises for welcoming the audiences
Bhubaneswar: A day after the state government allowed cinema halls to reopen from January 1, owners of cinema halls and theatres started preparations for raising the curtains with strict adherence to Covid-19 norms.
The cinema hall owners started sanitising their premises for welcoming the audiences. As per the guidelines, cinema halls will reopen with 50 per cent capacity.
The big screens were shut for audiences in March 2020 as part of the lockdown guidelines in the wake of the pandemic.
Orissa POST had earlier highlighted the financial burden on the cinema halls in the Capital city due to the lockdown. Maintenance and equipment costs, salary bills and other expenditures pushed the cinema hall owners into trouble. Big cinema halls in the city have incurred losses of around Rs 20-30 lakh each due to the restrictions.
“We welcome the state government’s decision of reopening cinema halls with Covid-19 protocols. We have started sanitising the seats and hall premises. We will be ready for reopening the halls after January 14,” said Maharaja Cinema Hall owner Biswajit Mohapatra.
Though many big-budget movies have been released through over-the-top (OTT) platforms during the lockdown, it is expected that some good movies would hit the silver screen ahead of the Republic Day, Mohapatra added.
“With 50 per cent capacity rules in place, it is expected that movies will run for longer periods in cinema halls. We request the government to stop sending power bills to us for now,” Mohapatra added.
All Odisha Cinema Hall Owners’ Association president and owner of Sriya-Swati-Stutee Cine Complex, Bijendra Mohanty, said, “It will be difficult to bring the audience back to cinema halls as there was no movie show for the last several months. Gone are the days when people were treating a movie ticket as a prized catch. Emergence of private television channels, pirated CDs and OTT platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime have dented on our business. It will take some time to recover the losses.”
Producer Shridhar Marrtha said that they would take steps for releasing their new movies ‘Dil Mora Manena’ and ‘Patnagarh’ soon. “The cinema halls will take some time to resume shows. The release dates of our movies would be announced after due consultation with cinema hall owners,” Marrtha added.
In the present scenario, it is difficult for cinema halls to get large number audiences for the movie shows. But, one cannot stop releasing movies at cinema halls for long, said actress Archita Sahu.
Arindam Ganguly, OP