Wanted - A Cinema Theater

@ Above- A grab from the film Cinema Paradiso

I don't clearly remember how and when I picked up seeing World Cinema, but I think it has to be from Dooradarshan channel. Longtime back they used to play foreign-language films on Sunday nights, this was in National television and in Metro. Then DD Podhigai, Tamil-language channel of Dooradarshan started telecasting foreign-language ( non-English ) on Saturday afternoons, the best part was the sub-titles will be in Tamil.

For some reason, these screenings were stopped, maybe IFFI didn't have much stock!. But the interest in me was still there, I used to read about films- Ananda Vikatan carried a series which talked about World Cinema, it was written by Chezian ( Cinematographer of Paradesi ). Nizhal, a Tamil monthly magazine, which talked about cinema. This magazine is not available in most of the stands, not sure if they have a magazine now, but they have an online presence (http://nizhal.in/).

Till then I had watched only handful of films through DD. Now, no way to watch the films, as the private TV screening were mostly of Hollywood films. And, I had to get content with it. Then came the grey-market, some non-English movies started to arrive. The guys in these market were good in their subject-matter, one guy suggested to watch Akiro Kurusawa’ Yajimbo!. The problem, I felt with these DVD’s were these exclusive shops were not next door, had to travel to specific places in the city, so going there and buying one or two was not cost effective, so I had to get it in bulk. By just seeing 20-30 DVD’s I got confused which to watch first!. 

Wikipedia and IMDb became main sources to pick films. So to know about the movies from different countries, sometimes I would go to the nearby browsing center, not to read, but take print-out of the Wiki articles as much as possible ( Save reading time!). Meanwhile, S Ramakrishnan’ Ulaga Cinema was a super resource. While he introduced good films, some were too hard to comprehend. Later, I realized that I shouldn't take “top 10, 100, 500 films” just by the list’ face value. By this time, torrents became available.

At first I didn't think downloading a movie from the internet was possible, I would say “are you kidding”. When I realized the reality, I thought to try it. But, I just had a Wireless Tata connection, which was a dial-up speed. So I would use the download in nights as it was free. It took a week for me to download Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope ( Now, I can do it in 30 mins ). Mininova, isohunt, piratebay the list goes on. Especially piratebay, these guys are like phoenix, they raise whenever it is blocked and the media tells they are dead. I personally feel torrents are great technology and it is not illegal as I’m not paying for it. The seeder doesn't get any monetary gains, it is like borrowing from the neighbor.

In Chennai, without the above mentioned avenues, the only way to catch the films will be film festivals, which is hard to schedule time, even if we do, I guess we can see only handful of movies. I seriously believe films has to been seen in a movie theater. Some cinema hall or an organization has to come-up with a plan of screening World Cinema 365 days or at least one show per week to start will be fine. I don't want to be part of a special elite group, the venue has to be for the general public.