Coming soon!!! Oraalppokkam…Not to a theatre near you! But anywhere you could arrange 50+ interested audience. Kazhcha’s Cinema Vandi will deliver quality big screen experience anywhere in the state…
This is actually a Facebook post by Oraalppokkam ’s lead actor Prakash Bare. But it could well be one of those age-old loudspeaker broadcasts that announce the screening of a film as the ‘vandi’ (vehicle) winds it’s way through a locality. After all, it was not so long ago that bioscopes brought new films to the viewers rather than us going in search of them.
Kazhcha Film Forum, a city-based collective of film lovers, which produced Oraalppokkam , incidentally a crowd-funded movie directed by young filmmaker Sanalkumar Sasidharan, is now bringing back the bioscope experience and taking the movie to the masses.
Kazhcha’s ‘Cinema Vandi’, literally, a van laden with projectors, lights and other hi-fi screening equipment, will travel the length and breadth of Kerala, screening the movie – and many others in the future – to groups of interested viewers. Following the inauguration of Cinema Vandi by filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan, the first screening of Oraalppokkam is on January 24 at 11 a.m. at KSTA Hall, near Sree Swati Tirunal College of Music, Thycaud . “It was the need of the hour,” says Sanalkumar. “There are many independent movies being made but they are not getting the needed space in theatres. Then again, even if they get space, it has come to a stage where we need to fight for space in the minds of viewers. Once upon a time there were bioscopes and many ‘C-class’ theatres in the state, which meant that even people who lived in remote hamlets had accesses to new films. Bioscopes have gone out of vogue and many of these theatres have since been demolished or upgraded, such that cinema viewing has itself become an urban phenomenon. As in the past, movies need to be watched together and discussed together,” he explains.
As the van moves through the state over the next four months, halting for seven to 10 days in each district, it’s hoping to utilise the manpower of local arts and sports clubs, lending libraries, resident associations and the like across the state to hold screenings. “We also have the facilities to screen the film in open air in the evenings. We are not promoting free screenings. That is not going to help either the filmmaker or the enterprise. Much like they would do in a bioscope screening, we want audiences to pay an amount and watch the movie and that’s why we are insisting on a minimum of 50 people per screening,” says Sanal.
And this is just the beginning. “We hope to make Cinema Vandi a permanent set up to screen the best of independent cinema and we hope that it will lead to a revolution of sorts in the cinema viewing culture,” he adds.
For bookings and screening details log on to >www.kazhcha.in
