Indian Film Culture - 16.cdr - federation of film societies of india

The enthusiasm and the passion for cinema of
these enthusiasts was so great that they took it up
seriously and immediately launched the
screenings of such great classics of the world
cinema like, Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin,
David Lean's Brief Encounter(UK), Carol
Reed's The Way Ahead (UK), Jean Renoir's This
Land is Mine (France), Flaherty's Nanook of the
North, Orson Welles's Citizen Kane and many
such highly acclaimed films. It was a revelation
for many intellectuals and many film lovers who
were habituated to see the routine formula films
with songs, dance and fights in commercial
theatres. It was not that easy to arrange
screenings of such films in those days. They had
to spend their own personal money, and had to
beg the theatre people to spare the hall in the
unusual timings like in the morning and procure
films from the foreign mission using influence
and personal contacts. They did all this but the
result was not encouraging at all. Only a handful
of people numbering around 50 to hundred used
to attend. But they persisted their task with a
missionary zeal.
It was in 1958 that Chiduda took personal
interest and prepared a blue print for building an
active film society movement in the country.
The document he prepared was for the
formation of Federation of Film Societies of
India was given a suitable shape with
recommendations from Mr. M.V.Krishnaswamy
and Mr. Bhownagary who were in Films
Division at that time and ultimately the
Federation of Film Societies of India took shape
and was formed on 13, December 1959 at the
residence of Krishna Kripalani the then
secretary of the Sahitya Academy at New Delhi.
Chidanand Dasgupta and Mrs. Vijaya Mulay
took over the crucial posts of Secretaries under
the presidentship of Satyajit Ray.
Their pioneering works in the early years of
formation and his sustained involvement in this
activity for decades inspired many film buffs to
start film societies all over India and during the
last fifty years this movement though not mass
based in its size has definitely created awareness
in many areas where it matters most. He was
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also the pioneer of film criticism in India taking
interest in promoting FIPRESCI- India a wing
of the Federation of International Film Critics as
its first President.
It was again on the initiative of Chiduda that the
first issue of Indian Film Culture (IFC) was
published in Apr-June 1962. The first editorial
board consisting of stalwarts like Chidanand
Dasgupta, Jagmohan, B.D.Garga, Marie Seton,
Kobita Sarkar, Satyajit Ray, P.V.G.Raju,
A.Rehman, K.Rangachari, Anantharaman and
Satish Bahadur. The objective and the intention
behind starting such a publication were made
clear as it is reproduced here: 'Indian Film
Culture, however is not intended to be a house
magazine for members of the Federation. As its
contents will show, it aims being a journal of
Film appreciation, written from the Indian point
of view. Chiduda took enormous interest in
editing this magazine and his coverage of
Foreign Film festivals under the caption Diary
of a film critic became a regular feature of IFC in
most of the earlier issues. In those days only a
very few film critics could afford to attend
foreign film festivals and Mr. Chidanand
Dasgupta, as a renowned film critic attended all
major film festivals such as Cannes, Berlin,
Venice, Moscow, Karlovy Vary and many others
as an invitee and IFC had the benefit of
publishing his reviews of the films he saw and
also the coverage of the events.
He has authored several books including
Talking about film, The painted Face, Seeing is
Believing and many others. His book The
Cinema of Satyajit Ray remains one of the
definitive works on Satyajit Ray. He also
directed many documentaries including
Portrait of a City (1961), The Dance of Shiva
(1968), The Stuff of Steel (1969), Zaroorat ki
Purti (1979), Rakto (1973) and two feature films
Bilet Pherat. (1972) and Amodini (1994).
On behalf of the Film societies and the Film
critics in India, we pay our tributes to him for
pioneering the film movement in India.
June 2012
H.N.Narahari Rao
President, FFSI.
Indian Film Culture