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Pune: A city obsessed with silver screens
NFAI focused on curated film screenings on different themes, bringing content from across the world and thus helping lay the foundation for many film festivals like the Science Film Festival, North East Film Festival, Aayam Women’s International Film Festival to grow in the city
“Pune is a city of the youth and also of creativity, and 17 years ago when we began with the Pune International Film Festival (PIFF), it was to bring meaningful cinema from the world and India on the same platform to a city which was academically inclined,” said Dr Jabbar Patel, Festival director PIFF. We felt that there was a need for a film festival as several colleges in the city offer courses in media and communication.Throughout the year, Pune witnesses 10 film festivals, each with a unique theme catering to various audiences.
“Pune housed the first film studio Prabhat, which laid the foundation and tradition of production and exhibition. Besides this, two premiere film institutes Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) and National Film Archive of India (NFAI) added to the plethora of educational organisations,” said Prakash Magdum, Director NFAI.
NFAI also brought in a film screening culture with National film circle, which screens films every Saturday for the past 15 years. Over the years, NFAI focused on curated film screenings on different themes, bringing content from across the world and thus helping lay the foundation for many film festivals like the Science Film Festival, North East Film Festival, Aayam Women’s International Film Festival to grow in the city.
“The reason Pune is able to hold so many film festivals is because the city houses film appreciation courses for film culture dissemination and people festivals to discuss the films,” added Magdum.
Satish Jakatdar , founder Aashay film club said, “ Although movies are easily available on the on internet and can be screened on mobile phones and websites, film festivals tend to draw audiences as movie lovers get to experience films from across the world on the big screen, which otherwise always screens commercial cinema.”
In 1980’s, Aashay film club brought regional films to the big screen under the Indian panorama which turned into a yearly routine. Later they joined hands with Max Mueller Bhavan and Alliance Francaise who brought language based (German and French) film festivals in 1980’s.
“Archive began screening films from 1992 with help from Federation of Film Societies of India and brought into focus country films which were also screened at the institute,” said Jakatdar. The city’s first international film festival was PIFF, that went global in 2001.
