FWICE ‘Ban’ On Ranveer Singh Explained By Ashoke Pandit And What It Means For Dhurandhar Star’s Career In Bollywood, South And Hollywood

Federation of Western India Cine Employees (FWICE) is the massive mother body in the Indian entertainment industry, representing over 30 craft associations. Its main purpose is to protect the economic and working interests of its members by intervening when producers suffer financial losses due to unprofessional conduct or unexpected project withdrawals. That is what FWICE Chief Advisor Ashoke Pandit did when Farhan Akhtar filed a complaint against Ranveer Singh for backing out of Don 3 just three weeks before the film’s unit was scheduled to leave for the shoot.

After several summons to Ranveer, the federation issued a non-cooperation directive against the actor on Monday, restricting him from working with any of the members associated with the federation.

While many are calling this a ‘Ban’, Ashoke Pandit told Republic Media Network that it is a “wrong term”. The federation cannot “ban” any actor, as they are not a court.

Non-cooperation means we have a federation which is a mother body of 38 crafts, including directors, painters, allied mazdoor, cameramen and writers. All these crafts of making a film have their own associations, and the federation is the mother body of all the associations. Every technician is one of our members. So, non-cooperation means all our vendors, our technicians, our workers, our painters, our light men, our vanity van suppliers, our caterers, whoever is our member will not work with, on any project which has Ranveer Singh in the film.

Farhan Akhtar is a director, and he’s also a member of our association. So, he shared that we started Don 3 three years back, and the pre-production work had started. They spent about ₹45 crore on the pre-production work, and Ranveer was constantly working with them; he was constantly in touch. The actor was part of the scripting, location recce, costumes and styling. When everything was done, three weeks prior to the unit leaving for a shoot abroad, Ranveer Singh backed out of the project.

Everything collapsed and came to a standstill. It was then that we (FWICE) came into the picture because a lot of technicians who had signed for the film became jobless. They had committed to this project for two to three years, and during those years, they didn’t take on any other work, so they became jobless.

To resolve the issue, we listened to them. After hearing them, we sent an invite to Ranveer Singh because we have to listen to the other side also. We sent a letter invitation to him, but we didn’t receive any response. We sent another invite, a reminder. 10 days later, we didn’t receive any response. We sent a third reminder 10 days later, but we didn’t get any response.

When the actor didn’t respond to our three notices, we did our due diligence as per our law of the association and decided that, now that he is not responding to it, we have to take a call. We held a meeting and came to a conclusion. We decided to have a press conference and inform the industry about our decision. The day we announced the press conference, the media came to know about it, and probably his PR team, his managers also came to know. We received a mail from the actor saying that, “We respect you, your organization to the utmost, but our issue doesn’t come into your jurisdiction.”

So, we said, “Okay, fine, if you feel that it’s not our jurisdiction, so we will go as per our law.” Probably nobody has told him that we are our trade union. It’s our right to protect our members. It’s our right to see to it that justice is given to our members. It’s a properly registered trade union under the government’s law.

So, we decided to issue a non-cooperation and announced this. To date, this entire thing has not come to a solution.

We will continue with this non-cooperation, and the reason why we did this, it was not only because of Ranveer; we fear that if this trend continues, the industry will collapse. Because tomorrow, a director can do this, a producer can do this, a technician can do this, everybody can, anybody can ditch out at the last moment. There has to be some commitment, you know? And we have gone through all the documents, we have gone through all the agreements, we have gone through all the papers, all the expense sheets, everything. That’s why we have come to this call.

The projects will be hampered because shooting will not happen as the technicians, stylists, writers, director and others are all associated with FWICE. This means Pralay and Shah Rukh Khan’s King might get delayed.

No, they will not go jobless; they will work somewhere else. A cameraman and technician don’t work only on one project; they have multiple projects in hand. It’s just that they will not work on this project.

We will wait for Ranveer’s response and have already started involving the producer bodies for this.

They are cooperative as it’s a fight between the producers.

No, he cannot work anywhere, whether it is Hindi cinema, South Indian cinema or even Hollywood.

Ashoke Pandit said, “By coming to a solution with them.” He added, “You (Ranveer) say I can’t pay ₹45 crores, I can’t pay ₹30 crore or ₹20 crore. He has to come to the meeting, and then the federation will decide the next step.

He angrily replied that film is a creative job and it takes time. ” In creative jobs, scripting hoti hai, sab kuch hota hai, everything is there. Sooner or later, what, the actor knew na ki picture pe kaam chal raha hai?

When pointed out that netizens are asking about 3 years gap, to his, Ashoke Pandit replied, “Das das saal lagta hai picture shuru hone mein, aath saal lagta hai, paanch saal lagta hai. This is not constructing a building. It’s a creative job, it’s not constructing a road. It’s not textile manufacturing and soap manufacturing.”

“It takes time, it’s a creative job. We are not bound by timing,” adding to this, he said, “Ranveer was in touch with the producers on creativity even after Dhurandhar Part 1.

The filmmaker refused to answer the question and simply added, “Whatever his reasons were, he has to see to the cost which has been incurred and pay them.

Ashoke Pandit hopes this issue gets sorted as soon as possible and moves in a “very” positive direction. He signed off praising Ranveer and called him a “vibrant person”. He added, “I’m a very big fan of his. His energies are really inspiring, the way he jumps, he, you know, he’s so positive, he’s lively. It’s so good. You know, if you are in depression, when you see him moving around, you feel so good. I messaged him after Dhurandhar success and he immediately responded.”

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