With art house cinema making forceful strides in Malayalam, there’s a renewed demand for screening spaces across the State to host these films, to which distributors generally turn their back.
While even the government-owned theatres fall for flicks that rake in the moolah, they have lately begun to give quality films their due, to encouraging results as is evident from the packed screening of parallel films across govt-run cinemas in Thiruvananthapuram, Kozhikode and other parts of the State recently.
Sadly, though, the Kerala State Film Development Corporation (KSFDC) doesn’t have a screening space in Ernakulam city.
To plug this lacuna, the city-based Metro Film Society is renewing an old demand for a State-run cinema hall in the city, which will enable cineastes in Ernakulam to watch quality flicks without having to spend through their nose.
Says M. Gopinathan of Metro Film Society: “There have been several proposals for a KSFDC cinema hall in the city in the past. There was a plan to have a cinema hall as part of a memorial complex for G. Sankara Kurup near the Goshree area. The memorial as such seems to have run into rough weather. It’s tough to get land for a cinema hall in the town, so it would be judicious to convert a hall, maybe one of the structures in the Town Hall complex, into a multipurpose screening space.”
Right now, active film societies in town organise film screenings once in a while in the cramped Children’s Park Theatre on Sunday evenings. If there’s a mini cinema hall, it will be a blessing for film lovers, he points out.
Even Cherthala and Paravur have govt-owned cinema halls, but they prefer to screen commercial films, laments Mr. Gopinathan. The society, he says, will petition the corporation, Ernakulam MLA, KSFDC chairman and minister in-charge of cinema to set up a theatre in Ernakulam city.
Lenin Rajendran, designated chairman of KSFDC, told The Hindu that he would spare no effort to bring a state-run cinema hall to Ernakulam. “It will be taken up on priority. I would, however, request film societies and other stakeholders to identify an ideal location and come up with alternative proposals to go about this,” he said.
Former Mayor Tony Chammany said while the corporation toyed with the idea of converting a theatre complex in Fort Kochi, which was to be vacated by a private party who had taken it on lease, for the purpose. “There were some disputes and it got embroiled in litigation. That’s however a good option to look at. Only, KSFDC would have to assess the depreciated value of the theatre constructed by the private party on government land and pay them accordingly to make way for a govt theatre,” he said.
