Madras High Court appoints mediator to resolve differences between Tamil film producers and FEFSI

The Madras High Court on Wednesday (July 2, 2025) appointed its former judge M. Govindaraj as a mediator to resolve the differences between Tamil Film Producers Council (TFPC) and Film Employees Federation of South India (FEFSI), both of which had been at loggerheads for quite sometime now, leading to the non-completion of several movies.

Justice K. Kumaresh Babu requested the mediator to hold talks with both parties and submit a report to the court as early as possible since advocate Krishna Ravindran, representing TFPC, stated that the film producers were suffering huge monetary loss due to non-cooperation by the technicians associated with FEFSI.

He said, the court could appoint one more retired judge too as a mediator if FEFSI would agree to share the costs. However, advocate G. Mohanakrishnan, representing the federation, said, his client could not bear the costs of appointing mediators and said that it was the producers who have deep pockets.

He also vehemently opposed TFPC’s plea to grant an interim order directing the members of FEFSI to cooperate with ongoing movie productions until the completion of the mediation proceedings. Mr. Mohanakrishnan said, TFPC might end up taking advantage of the interim order during the mediation talks.

It was TFPC that had filed a civil suit in the High Court to declare as null and void a communication issued by FEFSI on April 2, 2025, instructing all of the 22 associations affiliated with it not to cooperate with the members of TFPC and stop all film production work for them.

TFPC had also sought an interim injunction restraining the members of FEFSI from adhering to the “illegal” call for non-cooperation given by their federation.