CHENNAI: A few weeks ago when Hritik Roshan was in city for the audio release of his forthcoming film "Krissh" he told the press that he was glad that his film is being dubbed in Tamil and Telugu and he would be communicating in the language of the audience here. However, such occasions have become rare in the industry these days.

For 2004 the number of straight films released was 88 and dubbed films was 41. But in 2005 it was 100 for straight films and 26 for dubbed films. So the number of dubbed films is slowly coming down. When asked the reason for this, J.V. Rukmangadhan, secretary of the Dubbing Film Producers Association said that the reason was mainly due to the entertainment tax imposed by the Tamil Nadu Government. "The cinema halls are now slowly diminishing day by day. The release of straight films is now increasing. A couple of years ago there were a flood of dubbed films, particularly sleaze-oriented films from other languages, several in Malayalam. But now all that is past. Except English films, which are dubbed in Tamil and other South Indian languages there is literally no dubbing work in the industry. This is mainly due to the exorbitant tax imposed upon the dubbed films in Tamil Nadu. When the tax was levied our association went to the court and got a stay. But today a normal Tamil film gets only 15 per cent tax but for a dubbed film it is 50 per cent. This really killed the dubbing industry".

Mr.Rukmangathan has till now produced nearly 250 films, which includes more than 70 dubbed films. He has also produced six straight films like "Cinema Cinema" "Aval"(which was dubbed in Hindi and Telugu) and "Subramanya Samy", "Sami Sonna Sarithan", "Oyilattam" and "Senbagathottam".

In the city Little Anand and Motchem and Woodlands Symphony release dubbed films.

Hansa Pictures, which released the popular Hindi film "Aradhana" in Tamil Nadu, set a record of sorts with the film running for 116 weeks. They have till now released nearly 150 films dubbed in to various languages.

They have also dubbed "Roja" in Hindi and English and released it to the international audience. Their recent Tamil dubbed English film was "King Kong". They are into dubbing "Mission Impossible 111".

Mr.Babu Bhai Shah, partner of Hansa Pictures said that they do not dub all the English films. "Today the price of an English film is high. So to get back the money as well as to make the people in the interior of Tamil Nadu follow the language we dub it into the local language. This is one factor that draws the audience to the theatres".

As an exhibitor Karunakaran of Anand complex says that he is happy to screen dubbed films mainly for the audience. "When we screened a number of English and Hindi films in our Anand and Little Anand theatre people used to come personally and request me to bring more such films as they are able to understand it clearly in their local languages.

The Little Anand screened Malavika's Hindi film "See You At 9" which ran for more than 3 months. Other Hindi films were "Bold" and "Topless".

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