CHENNAI FILM SOCIETY

Funds. The problem has been that, we at one level can't increase the subscription beyond a level, on the other hand the cost of showing a movie is becoming high. Sponsorship is getting extremely difficult to come by. You have sponsorship for a cricket match, that too only for men's cricket. There is no sponsorship for women's cricket. There are no sponsors for a serious program. There are sponsors for a Y G Mahendran or S V Shekar play, but not for a good play. So called children's films like Lion King gets support but not an actual Children's film festival. And there is no Government support whatsoever, irrespective of which Government is in power. In Kerala, Karnataka, Kolkatta, Mumbai and New Delhi there is support from the Government in varying degrees.

In Bengal we have Buddhadas Gupta, Ritu Parno Ghosh, Aparna Sen, in Kerala, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Jeyaraj, in Mumbai, Shyam Benegal, Govind Nihalani. In Chennai, we have Mani Ratnam, who is a good film maker, but I am not convinced by the content he chooses to tackle. Now there is a lot of hype about Rajiv Menon, but its only hype. Balu Mahendra has class, but unfortunately he has no money. The good movies generally make the film festival circuit, but the media has also contributed a lot to that. Its becoming more of good marketing than good film making. Santosh Sivan makes good films, but he has not much of a commercial or festival success. Same way, M T Vasudeva Nair does not make it to festivals or awards, but his movies are definitely of good quailty.

There seems to be an unintended bias towards some movies. Like there is a bias against Assamese movies. This is a marketing effort, some movies are lobbied and marketed well, so they are seen, even though they are not of good quality. No wonder there is a lot of controversy in the National Film Awards. I look at this as a collective failure, we can't blame the movie makers, audience, producers, jury or any body separately.

There is a new genre definitely. There is a large Indian community abroad, and they have a lot of problem like any other community. World over there is a lot of immigration and migration, so there are a number of ethnic minorities everywhere. In fact in the International Film Festival of India, this year, there were a lot of films dealing with minorities. Some film makers make movies about the present, the problems faced by the people today. There are a lot of stories to be told, when there are these new sub-culture of immigrants in any country.

A lot of these movies about Non-resident Indians are a good marketing strategy, that is, you are making a film targeting a particular section of the population. An Indian does not make a typical American movie, he makes an Indian American movie. It is good marketing sense, but does it make good film making sense? People from outside India, making movies about India, I don't think they are making it out of passion, otherwise the producers will not put their money in it.

Red Beard by Akira Kurosawa, Bicycle Thief by Vittorio De Sica and To be or Not to be by Earnst Lubistch.

For More Details Contact : T Kalyanaraman
Chennai Film Society
#2 C, Block 2, 'Lakshmima',
Plot No 40, 4th Seaward Road,
Valmiki Nagar, Thiruvanmiyur, Chennai
Phone: 2442 3632 / 3762

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