Towards Digital Film Societies

Tracing the Makeover of Film Society Movements in India

Two years of Covid witnessed the world going digital in a big way. The analogue era’s cultural movements like film societies too underwent major changes. Many used digital platforms to see and discuss films in their quest towards building a better film culture.

After starting as the only forum for savouring world film classics in 1940s Mumbai, today the film society movement is finding itself in the midst of a complete digital makeover after two decades of struggling with digital formats from VHS tapes to OTT. Will these changes help them achieve their original goal of developing a group of film connoisseurs and professionals who will carry on the mantle of meaningful films? To know the future one needs to understand the history and its dynamics in full measure.

Based on the book Celluloid to Digital: India’s Film Society Movement by V K Cherian, this session will examine the future course of the Indian film society movement, which nourished the ‘New Wave’ in Indian films from 1970 and has been an anchor for all the meaningful films in the country.