It was during my Master's in Hyderbad Central University that I truly discovered a passion for good cinema. The Mass Com department used to organize Film Fests, where they used to screen World Cinema that brought to light human strories from across the globe, and featured movies directed by absolute stalwarts like Martin Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick, Jean- Luc Godard, Roman Polanski, Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa, Satyajit Ray, Francis Ford Coppola, Alfred Hitchcock and so on and so forth....
Many a weekend was spent watching back to back screenings of movies from all genres and walks of life. Watching a movie with a select clique of people, assimilating the finer nuances of cinematic techniques, brooding on some great shots.....I was hooked. But alas, the opportunities lasted only for two years, after which I got a little lost in the throes of life.
A couple of years back, I happened to come across a blog by the very talented and perceptive Jai Arjun Singh, called "JABBERWOCK". I was hooked once again. His many writings on cinema, as well as books and other general topics took me back once more to those long ago spent moments with a group dedicated to the pursuit and appreciation of good cinema. His detailed descriptions and critiques of movies are informative, very well researched, highly dynamic and pertinent to the issue at hand.
And just a couple of months back, here in Singapore, my Italian flatmate invited me to a film club run by a clique of expats, from places like Mexico, Britain, Italy and Spain. The movie we saw was an Italian movie called "Il Sorpasso". I was really glad that finally, I would have some company in a hobby that all this while had been a pretty solo affair. The movie was good, and the discussion we had after the movie was even better. I was happy. But it didn't last long. The next week, the movie had to be cancelled because everyone was so busy, and after that they discontinued altogether due to some issues.
That's when the thought struck me! Why not get my own projector, and start my own Cineclub with a few select people I know who appreciate good cinema? And just like that, I bought my own Epson EB-W03 projector at the recent SITEX IT fair , and started what I had been wanting for a very long time....our Cineclub.
We screened Rituporno Ghosh and Deepti Naval's " Memories in March" last week, and it was liked by everyone. We will be screening the very distinctly different "3Iron", Kim Ki Duk's Korean drama this week. I'm glad I did this......so glad!
