A cinema owner explains why the film was not released even in Nizamabad, her home district

“Who is going to watch the movie,” questioned a film exhibitor in Adilabad town as he responded to a query on why the much-talked-about ‘Poorna’, a biopic on the feat of Malavath Poorna, the youngest girl to scale Mount Everest, was not released in the districts in Telangana, not even in Nizamabad, the mountaineer’s home district.

"We will only end up losing money as audience prefer masala films rather than inspirational flicks like Poorna,” he said.

Poorna is a film about the Banjara tribal student of the Tadvai Telangana Social Welfare Residential School and Junior College, Tadvai, Nizamabad, and her exploits which culminated in her commendable achievement in May 2014.

Bollywood actor-director Rahul Bose was so inspired by her that he brought out a film on the exploits of the young mountaineers which included fellow student Sadhanapalli Anand Kumar.

“Yes, it was slated for an all-India release on March 31 but was restricted to about four multiplexes in Hyderabad. Each of the multiplexes exhibited only one show per day,” a cinema hall owner told The Hindu.

Exhibiting cinema is a different ball game when it comes to doing it in single theatres in the districts as against the multiplexes in Hyderabad, according P. Likhit Reddy, who runs a theatre in town.

“The entertainment tax slab is prohibitive in rural areas while multiplexes do not have to shell out taxes,” he explains the economics of exhibiting a film.

"To run a picture for 28 shows, we need to pay Rs. 10,000 in advance to the distributor. It means risk and experience tells us that films like Poorna will bomb at the box office,” an exhibitor said on condition of anonymity.

"No distributor is coming forward to run the flick saying it will not be a commercial success,” said a crest-fallen Korri Manoj Kumar, who enacted the role of Anand Kumar in the film. "The movie would have inspired poor students,” he said as he gave his reason for the film to be exhibited in rural areas.