Off the Books film club is all set for their fourth session of a secret film screening this Sunday
The group in discussion at a previous event
Cinema is magic. It is even more so when you experience it with a community of like-minded strangers. Off the Books, a Mumbai-based film club attempts to bring this back. The recently-started club is part of a book club Swapbook! that was founded by Pravin Subramanian in 2011. “When I started the book club, I always wanted to have a film club as well, but I hadn’t found the right people to host it,” he tells us. That’s why when one of their regulars, Vedant Naik, suggested the idea for Off the Books, he was immediately on board. “During the pandemic, I used to go to the Deepak Talkies in Lower Parel. Every Sunday they would screen a classic or a foreign movie or sometimes an obscure one from Europe. Once the lockdown ended, the theatre didn’t reopen. For me, it was quite a loss because it was a place I really enjoyed going to. The film club was mainly to fill that gap in my life; not only to watch these movies, but also to watch them with people who would enjoy them,” shares Naik.
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Pravin Subramanian and Vedant Naik
The most exciting part about entering this space is that you don’t know which film you’re in for until the lights have been dimmed, the audience settles in, and the projector readies itself to run. Naik was inspired by the Telluride Film Festival he attended in the US where they did something similar. Of this event, Salman Rushdie had once said that there are two types of festivals: one which is mega-hyped and one where no prizes are given and so much of it is dedicated not to commerce but purely to love. Being a cinephile, Naik was tickled by the magic of discovery and secrecy that Telluride offered. “I knew that if we revealed the name of the film, people might feel like they’ve already watched the film or that it was not their kind of cinema or they’d know what they’re in for. The angle of what feels almost like a secret film society appealed to me,” he says.
What fascinates him is that the audience at the screenings comprises a lot of young people. Perhaps with the OTTs encouraging small-budget films, foreign films as well as experimental films might have a role to play in opening a world of cinema that sometimes doesn’t make it to the halls. Naik admits, “OTT is godsend. I understand the economics of theatres with their limited windows; they can only screen so many movies in a day. OTT has very interestingly come in to support that. For a nominal subscription fee, you have access to all these movies. But I also believe that the experience of watching a movie in a dark room with a bunch of people is special.” As he gears for their fourth session of the film club this Sunday, Subramanian agrees with Naik. He adds, “After the pandemic, we just realised how important this sense of community and bonhomie is. Through our book and film clubs, we hope we are able to reach out to those who feel lonely or vulnerable.”
On: 23 July; 5 pm onwards
At: 3 Art House, Khar West.
Cost: Rs 300
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