There are fascinating stories in India we know nothing of. Untouched by modernity are people who still live a traditional life. Bringing their stories to cities and to the world are fascinating documentary films. One such film is The Cinema Travellers by Shirley Abraham and Amit Madheshiya.
The film is about travelling cinemas that journey to faraway villages. Known as tent cinemas or tambu talkies, the travelling cinemas are transported via lorries. “Their lives are very tough. Watching films in cities are a much more sanitised experience. These people have been carrying films with them for seven decades. They carry everything, even 300 kilo projectors on their backs, and build it from the ground, which seems something from the bygone era,” says Amit.
They screen eclectic films, says Amit. “If we look at the history, they first screened mythological films. And in 2008, when we began shooting this film, Bollywood blockbusters were screened.” He adds that the films are only a backdrop to The Cinema Travellers, it is the people’s stories that form the crux of the film.
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Shirley and Amit received a grant from India Foundation for the Arts (IFA) in 2008 for researching tambu talkies/tent cinemas that follow the route of the religious jatras /fairs in Maharashtra. The film emerged from this research.
It took eight years of intensive research to make the film. “The first three years weren’t about the film, which came much later.” The Cinema Travellers won critical acclaim and had its world première at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the L'Œil d'or Special Mention: Le Prix du Documentaire. The film was also pitched at the 2013 Sheffield Doc/Fest Meet Market and has been invited to play at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival, and 2016 New York Film Festival. It also won the Special Jury Award in the non-feature category at the 64th National Film Awards.
Amit was assailed with doubts in the beginning. “I am a photographer and up to this point had never shot a film.” Amit says he “was terrified of capturing moving images” and even thought someone trained in film making should replace him. “Shirley and I kept motivating ourselves. There were times when I would wonder if anybody would even watch this film. But I found that the visual aesthetic bloomed organically. Had I been a trained film-maker, I doubt I would have been able to capture it that way.”
Amit says he and Shirley had a great synergy. “We met in college. We have very different ways of looking at the world. Even though we speak different languages, there is a certain synergy. I am always thinking in images and she is interested in people.”
Their hard work and vision paid off. “It felt great to have the audiences’ multiple reading of the text and the film. The film becomes a complete work of art when the audience interprets it.”
But documentary films hardly find the platform they deserve. Amit doesn’t lament this. He says the onus is on film makers and on audiences. “IMy audience and I both have to work towards it. We are our own evangelists.”
The Cinema Travellers will be screened by Vikalp’s Doc@Everest, in association with IFA, at Everest Talkies, Frazer Town on April 27 at 7 pm. Entry is free
