Mangaluru : Several professionals in Tulu film industry felt a need of establishing a separate film commerce board for development of regional language films such as Tulu.

Speaking at a felicitation programme to honour the achievers from Tulu film industry, organised by Karnataka Tulu Sahitya Academy in Mangaluru on Thursday, Film producer and distributor T A Srinivas said that is has been inevitable for regional films to have a separate film commerce board for itself, so that the respective film industries as well as the languages may flourish at the same time. So far, the regional languages including Tulu have not been able to attain great success in box office and the producers were not getting in return as against what they have invested.

He meanwhile called upon the film producers not to release films back to back but to wait for a minimum of two weeks after the release of a film.

The defiant competition would do no good either for the film industry or the producers.Film producers should have a strategy as to give successful films in a long run. Also, the films should cater to all stratas of people, he said and added to choose various genres instead of adhering to a particular genre, only because it was a hit at a point of time.

Film director and producer Richard Castelino even though there are 17 lakh Tulu speaking people, the Tulu films have been able to attract only two lakh film audience and added that more efforts are needed to attract the remaining people to cinema halls.

Actor and director Shiwadhwaj suggested the Karnataka Tulu Sahitya Academy to preserve old Tulu films in digital form. He felt for a need to increase subsidy by the government, for Tulu films.

The members of cast and crew of Tulu film ‘Chalipolilu’ which completed 200 days, were felicitated on the occasion. The film is running for the 217th day in PVR in Mangaluru and has also been screened in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Madikeri and Bahrain, making a collection of more than Rs 2 crore. Director Veerendra Shetty Kavoor, actors Navin D Padil, Public Relations Officer Jagannath Shetty Bala, Prashanth and others were among the felicitated.

Academy Chief Janaki M Brahmavar presided over the programme, Registrar Chandrahas Rai B and actor Devdas Kapikad were present among others.