Movies in a box

BANGALORE: Even as the city soaks in the Bengaluru International Film festival, City Express takes a look at the role played by film societies in encouraging film festivals.Film societies cater to its members by screening offbeat films and documentaries. These societies emerged in the city during 60s and became a movement in the 70s. Film societies, a decade ago, was restricted to a certain class of people and was hard to get membership. But today, the scenerio has changed.Some film societies in Bangalore are Pedestrian Pictures, Suchitra Film Society, Bangalore Film Society, Vikalp Bangalore, Alliance Francaise, and Goethe Institute among others.Director and founder of Pedestrian Pictures, Deepu said, “We mostly screen documentaries with sociopolitical issues and rarely screen feature films too.We screen documentaries and off-beat films in colleges, villages, apartments, complex and also in venues on the outskirts of the city.”Many societies give an opportunity for film makers to interact with the audience and critically view the film. Deepu added, “This year we have screened approximately 350 films which are followed by discussions and criticisms.We get directors or the film makers to interact with the audience after screening of the documentaries or films. But it is mostly impossible in case of the foreign films.”Though there is increase in number of documentary film makers in the industry, there is a general lack of enthusiasm and necessary encouragement, he said.Expressing his opinion about the lack of support, he said, “Documentary films lack sufficient distribution unlike the commercial films. But many educational institutions are having a collection of documentaries in their libraries. Today, internet is giving a wider reach to such off-beat films.”He added that the films should not be watched with any pre-conceived ideas about the director or the film maker, which is now the norm today.Many educational institutions are conducting film analysis workshop and courses that help students in getting a better perspective of the film as a piece of art.Film societies are encouraging these courses by having access to films which are not available otherwise, say students and teachers.Sneha Shyam Gopal, a student from St. Joseph’s College, said, “We students get an opportunity to watch classics that are not easily available and film societies give us access to them. This helps us to enrich our knowledge about great films.”The societies also encourage the young film makers. Amutha Manavalan, a lecturer at St. Joseph’s College, said, “Film societies introduce these young talent. Most times, these short films and documentaries are sent for participation to international film festivals like Cannes. In these festivals, the industry bigwigs take notice of talent. It becomes easy for the young to speak about or sometimes address social issues. Off-beat topics such as suicides can be effectively portrayed here. Also, general public, who participate in these film festivals, watch these films and documentaries thereby spreading awareness on these issues.”