Filmfare’s filmflam?

To flimflam is to swindle someone with a confidence trick, which is precisely what the organizers of the Filmfare Awards seemed to have done with the Government of Assam.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the organizers i.e. the Times Group and the Assam Government in November of 2019 to bring the Filmfare Awards from Mumbai to Guwahati for the first time.

According to media reports, the organizers first approached the state governments of Gujarat and West Bengal for sponsorship but finally struck a deal with the Government of Assam after the latter agreed to become a direct sponsor and destination partner for the event.

Industry experts revealed that the decision to relocate the Filmfare Awards from Mumbai was born out of financial compulsion due to a slump in the revenue streams for the Filmfare magazine, which serves as one of the main sponsors for the Filmfare Awards ceremony. This claim is further substantiated by reports from the Indian Readership Survey (IRS) of 2017 which ranks the fortnightly at the last position in the list of the top 20 magazines in the country on the basis on readership, destroying claims that it is the top-selling magazine in the country.

Now, the Assam Government sponsored an additional sum of Rs 23 crore to the organizers on top of the land, labour and security which it had already committed for the ceremonial proceedings. The contention regarding this stems from the fact that the government was only compensated a dismal sum of Rs 1.6 crore by the organizers for all their efforts, which was less than half the revenue generated from the event from ticket sales. Furthermore, the organizers failed to showcase even a single snippet promoting the tourism potential of Assam throughout the event.

Even Chief Minister of Assam Sarbananda Sonowal attended the ceremony from the beginning till the very end, probably in hopes of getting an opportunity to address the gathering, albeit for a few minutes, but was denied the opportunity.

Putting it all into perspective, I think it’s fair to suggest that this whole shebang will only be remembered in the future as nothing but a sorry moment for the Government of Assam due to its inability in recognizing its own exploitation.

Gaurav Agarwal

Guwahati.