Reeling them in

Reeling them in
Bangalore’s film societies are alive and kicking despite competition from DVDs and multiplexes, says Shrabonti Bagchi
The Telegraph

At 6:30pm on a Saturday evening, the hall outside the Nani Cinematheque in Bangalore starts to fill up. Some of the people trickling in carry jholas and sport cotton kurtas and others tote laptops, clearly having put in a day’s work in a city office. Slowly, they fill up the 100-seat cinematheque. They’ve come for a screening of Korean filmmaker Kim Ki-Duk’s 3-Iron, a lyrical portrayal of love between two people adrift in society.

They could have been watching Pirates of The Caribbean at nearby Inox, a glitzy multiplex that serves, along with butter popcorn and large-sized glasses of iced cola, films fresh from Hollywood and Bollywood ovens. Or, they could have rented out a disc from one of Bangalore’s many DVD-renting parlours and sprawled in front of the sofa at home.

But, fortunately for Bangalore’s many film clubs and societies, there is enough of a cinema-loving public to keep them thriving and abuzz. This crowd may not mind watching Johnny Depp and his colourful pirate films — but it also wants its Wong Kar-Wais and Kim Ki-Duks.

“The mantle of alternative cinema capital of the country has historically been shared by Calcutta and Kerala, but Bangalore is culturally conscious city, a city with a large youth population. Naturally, many of them bend towards alternative cinema,” says Georgekutty A L, a film society veteran who heads the Bangalore Film Society, the oldest such club. According to Kutty, film literacy and cinema-consciousness is quite high, as proved by the impressive number of film societies that thrive here.

Take a look at one of the city’s newest film societies — Collective Chaos — that has more than 2,000 members on its e-group. The message boards of this e-group regularly throw up volatile discussions about this or that classic noir film’s motives and merits. The Korean film 3-Iron is part of a festival of Asian Cinema organised by Collective Chaos, which was started in 2003 by a group of film enthusiasts.

Digital technology has helped them build a large collection of DVDs with the best of world cinema bought from the UK and the US, says the Collective Chaos team in an e-mail interview. According to LACE films, another new entrant into the film soc arena, they started off almost four years ago not only because they wanted to watch good cinema, but also to enrich the viewing process with discussion, dialogue and debate.

Which, in a nutshell, is what brings people to film societies. After all, this is the DVD age when you can watch Kurosawa or Fritz Lang in your own living room. “Watching a film is only part of the process of assimilating it. All good cinema requires deeper understanding than can come from a solitary viewing,” says multiple film society member Vignesh P V. This cinema lover confesses he often enjoys the discussions more than the film itself.

This is the idea behind the Bangalore Film Society’s programme ‘Cinema Coffee Conversation’. Held every second weekend, this includes the screening of four films (two each on both days) with a coffee break in between. “This is one of any film society’s most important roles,” asserts Vidyashankar, another film society veteran who runs the popular Suchitra film society, one of the first to acquire its own auditorium.

Spurring on these passionate people, young, middle-aged and old, is a recent Bangalore acquisition — a space earmarked for alternative cinema called the Nani Cinematheque. Cinematheque is a term denoting a screening theatre for the viewing of special kind of cinema and is a concept popular in countries such as France and the US. It plays much the same role as Calcutta’s Nandan. Films that qualify include classics of the likes of Jean Luc Goddard and Andrei Tarkovsky and the latest documentaries that may not find other avenues for screening.

“What the cinematheque has managed to do is bring the cinema-loving community in Bangalore together through the number of film societies that hold their screenings here,” says actor, producer and journalist Prakash Belawadi, director, Centre for Film and Drama (CFD) that runs the cinematheque and holds regular film and acting workshops.

The CFD was brought together by Belawadi with help from members of the Bangalore cinema and theatre community in 2004. It provides space for several societies, produces plays and also acts as a collective for documentary makers. It has produced a film Doosra directed by founder-member Anand Subramanian. “We hope to make CFD a hub for any cinema-centric experience,” says Belawadi.

Festivals, of course, are the life-blood of these film societies. At a recent festival organised by Collective Chaos the number of shows had to be doubled because of the crowds. The Bangalore Film Society’s Georgekutty says that in 2004, they held four festivals and were surprised by the turnout each time.

But organising a festival takes cold cash. Suchitra, which is spearheading an effort to organise an International Film Festival of Bangalore by yearend, is facing the pinch. “Organising a festival on a large scale is a huge effort,” says Vidyashankar of Suchitra.

There are some organisations that help. Cultural centres such as the Alliance Francaise and Max Mueller Bhavan encourage alternative cinema and provide space for workshops. “Encouraging cinema is an integral part of our cultural schedule and the response we have got from Bangalore is quite exceptional,” says the cultural co-ordinator, Alliance Francaise, Bangalore.

Will the societies continue to thrive in this digital era when visual images are coming at us from all directions? The members certainly think so and their tribe is increasing all the time.