Trivandrum: The head of the Film Exhibitors United Organisation of Kerala (FEUOK) has protested the closing down of cinema theatres in the capital city after a series of fresh curbs were introduced in light of increasing cases of Covid-19 in the district.
A plea has been filed by the head of FEUOK in the Kerala high court questioning the state's order prohibiting opening of theatres on Sundays. The plea demanded to cancel the order to close theatres in Thiruvananthapuram.
FEUOK President K Vijayakumar condemned the government decision to close down theatres whilst keeping malls and bars open, pointing out that there was no logic behind the decision. He has petitioned the court to allow theatres to function at 50% capacity on Sundays instead of closing down completely.
Theatre owners were banking on crowd restrictions and night curfews alone which would still give them a chance to screen shows. With the theatre business already struggling after the onset of the pandemic and growth of OTT platforms, the release of Vineeth Sreenivasan's long-awaited 'Hridayam' in theatres last Saturday brought some fresh hopes back, which were dashed when the new curbs were announced.
"The movie halls are slowly recovering from the adverse impact of the previous two lockdowns and closing down the facilities now will lead us to a big crisis," Vijayakumar had told the New Indian Express a week ago.
Cinemas, theatres, gyms, and swimming pools will be temporarily shut in Kerala's Thiruvananthapuram as the positivity rate in the state capital surged to 49 %, much higher than the national average of 20.75 %. This suggests every one in two people getting tested is positive.
The district has been classified as "Category C" by the government, which is based on the severity of spread and hospitalizations, districts across the state. On Tuesday, Kerala reported 28,481 more cases from among 80,740 samples tested in the past 24 hours, taking the number of active cases to over 1.42 lakh.
For all students, except for those in the final year of college and classes 10 and 12, online classes will be held. Schools can further decide to stop physical classes if the attendance has been below 40 % or the emergence of covid clusters.