Trivikram Srinivas’s latest Telugu movie A Aa is running to packed houses all over the US and is expected to gross around 2 million USD. On June 2nd, Blue Sky Movies, this film’s overseas distributor, sent out a press note to web media which stated that “A student from Valparaiso University was arrested for filming A Aa movie in Muvico Rosemont theater in Chicago area”.
The Telugu360 team has decided to investigate this to and present our readers with the truth as it stands. We called the Village of Rosemont Police Department to inquire if any such arrest was made, specifically for the cited reason of illegally recording a movie in the Muvico theater.The Rosemont Police confirmed that no such arrest was made in last one week ,for filming a movie in Muvico theater nor any other theater in the Rosemont area. Further, we also requested their records department if they would pull up the case number T16000061 (This is the case number provided in Blue Sky movies press release). “This is not even the format of our case numbers. Our case numbers start with 2”, told the records official from Police department. .
Telugu360 team’s email to Blue Sky movies to get clarification on this issue went unanswered as of this report publishing time.
In addition to our investigation , Washington Times reported that :
“Contrary to the distribution company’s claim, however, an incident report obtained by The Washington Times reveals the moviegoer wasn’t arrested, but was actually allowed to stay and watch the rest of the film.
According to the incident report by local police, the distributor did in fact notify the theater Wednesday evening after learning that the film was being streamed live on Facebook.
“When our manager entered the theater, he saw the individual recording and asked him to stop recording immediately or leave the theater. He complied with this and deleted any images he contained on the phone for the movie, [and] we allowed the individual to stay for the remainder of the phone,” an unnamed cinema employee told Rosemont Public Safety Police. “
“I am not willing to prosecute,” the theater employee said.
While Telugu360 completely supports the fight or awareness campaign against the piracy, it would be appreciable if the USA distributors stop sending such fake arrest claims to websites, bringing bad reputation to whole community. Mainstream USA media has also reported this incident and petty incidents like this bring bad reputation to the whole community. On the other hand, Telugu movie audience also should watch movies on the big screen and not encourage piracy.
