FilmBay, an initiative of the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC), will provide an alternative exhibition space for independent and art-house cinema and documentaries that may never get a traditional commercial release. The centre, which will come up at an existing theatre at Sherly Rajan Village, Bandra, Mumbai, will be equipped with an exhibition hall, a 100-seater digital cinema, a reading and research library, a bookshop and a cafeteria.
Kiran Rao talks about this ambitious project, the idea for which stemmed from her own experience as a newbie filmmaker in Mumbai.
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People have begun to understand that it is important to encourage different kinds of cinema. It’s necessary to have a place that shows this kind of cinema and for people to absorb it, cultivate a palate for it and slowly begin to see that cinema can be different; that there is avant-garde, experimental cinema, animation, shorts and documentary cinema that automatically get excluded from our regular cinema watching. So I think it’s imperative we create spaces where cinema can be given its due as an art form that needs to be studied and encouraged.
Is there a personal experience that prompted FilmBay?
The idea came to me way back in 1998 when I came to the city and didn’t know anyone here. I had moved from Delhi, where the filmmaking community is smaller and there were opportunities to meet peers at various screenings. I assumed Mumbai would be similar. Unfortunately, there was no place where I could meet like-minded people. That’s when I thought of setting up something like this. I thought — ‘what would I look for, as a filmmaker and as a film watcher?’ ‘If I want to watch something beyond the regular mainstream fare where do I go?’ Of course, now we have the Internet, but it can’t replace the interaction that can take place in a physical place.
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Spaces that are dedicated to promoting art sometimes have a tendency to appear exclusive. How are you going to avoid that?
We will ensure that there is a wide mix of cinema. Whatever you see will be of the highest quality and well-curated. The idea is to keep it a live space. If you don’t want to necessarily take a chance with the kind of cinema playing, then there will be other things to draw you in, like a Q&A with the director or discussions after a screening, master classes and workshops.
What will your role be as the creative director of FilmBay?
Because I found the space, I have been working for a long time trying to figure out all kinds of things, and not just content curation. My role will be to oversee how it is built. We are rebuilding the entire interior. I’ve actually been planning for the last three years while NFDC was working on the lease. I’ve also been thinking about how to set up different kinds of events that different kinds of people would be interested in, while keeping the focus on cinema that is artistic. I will also be overseeing the building up of the archive which NFDC is particularly focussing on and creating a vibrant café with a canteen-cafeteria kind of environment where people are encouraged to spend time. So it is basically a 360-degree responsibility that I am really excited about because when I first thought of it, it was a small idea, but then this space allows me to do so much and I do not want to undervalue what I am getting.
What has the response been from the industry?
My friends in the industry know that I have been working on it for some time now. I am sure they will be quite welcoming of a space like this. They are also aware that a certain kind of film does not get distribution and exhibition. It is a conversation that people in the industry constantly have — about the need for other spaces because even bigger producers doing small films find it difficult to tackle the marketing and distribution for such films. I see FilmBay as a centre for entertainment, learning, interaction and collaboration.