Pioneers
The first Film Society in India was started in Bombay in 1937,
two decades after the arrival of cinema (1913), under the
leadership of Stanley Japson, editor of the Illustrated Weekly
of India. Their main objective was to make short films of
their own. In 1942, a group of Indian documentary filmmakers
started the Bombay Film Society with the objective of getting
accustomed with the contemporary trends in Western cinema.
But it was the Calcutta Film Society, formed under the leadership
of Satyajit Ray, Nimai Ghosh and Chidananda Dasgupta in 1947,
that conceived its role in a qualitatively different manner
and in the sense in which we understand it today. The film
scene till then was dominated by the indigenous commercial
fare and the Hollywood movies. The Film Societies filled this
gap by bringing non-Hollywood foreign films to the local audience.
The
Chitralekha Film Society formed under the leadership of
Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Kulathoor Bhaskaran Nair, in 1965
in Trivandrum, was the first Film Society in Keralam. Though
Chitralekha pioneered the Film Society movement in the state
it was active only up to the seventies. Chitralekha also
did some work in establishing Association of Film Societies
in Keralam and to introduce Film Society movement in universities
and colleges. It was promoted by a group of committed cineastes
and was able to make forays into all areas of film industry.
Farsighted in approach, it was also the only organization,
which succeeded in establishing a film studio on its own.
More than extraneous factors but internal dissention that
ultimately led to its downfall. A traveling film festival
conducted under the leadership of Adoor, M. Govindan, M.K.K.Nair
etc. also helped a lot for the widespread of the movement.
Film Societies were formed at Kottayam (under the initiative
of Aravindan, C.N. Sreekandan Nair etc.), Thrissur, Kozhikode
and Kollam.
Before
Chitralekha there was an attempt in Thrissur namely Trichur
Film Club in 1955. Though not organized in the form of a
Film Society, TFC can be viewed as a first attempt to form
a Film Society.
