CHENNAI FILM SOCIETY

Chennaibest.com speaks to T Kalyanaraman, the man behind Chennai Film Society and also the Regional Secretary, Federation of Film Societies of India - Southern Region.

The Chennai Film Society was founded by M Shivakumar and Shasi Kumar (former owner of Asianet). Shiva kumar was a student of Adyar Film Institute. He had also done film appreciation course at the Pune Film Institute. It was the 80s, there was not much of TV, but there were other film societies in Chennai. They were the only place where people could go and see uncensored movies. But they were indiscriminate in the choice of films shown. So with the aim of showing classic movies this society was started.

We have built a credibility that we show only above average films of aesthetic value. Whether you like the story or not is subjective. Even foreign films are trash sometimes...even Iranian, Hungarian or Polish filmmakers make trash films sometimes. So we choose films that are aesthetically satisfying for the viewer.

A lot of people are interested in good films. We have requests to show both Indian and International classics. The costs of showing good movies are becoming very high, the costs of getting the films from Pune Film Archive is increasing by almost 15% per year. The freight costs are also increasing by 25% per year. So the costs are getting increasingly prohibitive.

It has to be a part of an effort to build a good value system. On one hand, you have the moral values and on the other you have the cultural values, you have to choose between the good and the bad. There is something called 'the good cinema' and 'the bad cinema'. The society plays a part in developing a platform to choose good or bad. Its not that they are chosen for intellectualism or content but they are chosen for sheer aesthetic value.

Some movies are made very well. I personally felt that a movie like Fiza had stuff in it. The director has some stuff, for commercial interest he has added some songs and a contrived ending, but it was definitely well made. In a good number of Tamil films the cinematography is very good. Mani Ratnam's movies are not non-commercial, but they are not badly made either. In some cases Indian movie makers are of higher standard than the so called art film makers abroad. They are definitely not inferior technically.

Even Dulhaniya Dilwale Le Jayenge was a well made movie. The story was taken to the end without any conflict. The manner of the story using the screen play was very obvious.

Why are the audiences going for clichéd formula movies?

Its not that a novel story does not do well. Take for example Ardh Satya by Govind Nihalani, it had all the making of an 'art movie'. It did not follow any commercial trends which existed in that period, yet it did well commercially. There are many other movies which did well commercially inspite of its non commercial content. So it shows that people are appreciative of good movies. Its very difficult to give a conclusive answer to that.

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