Cinema is not something one would usually associate with the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), but it was the birthplace of Chalachitra Film Society, which played a key role in nurturing a vibrant community of film enthusiasts in Thiruvananthapuram. The Society turned 50 this week.

Back in 1976, four VSSC employees - George Mathew, K.N.G. Kaimal, S.B. Jayaram and M.N.D. Nair -- decided to take their own decisive steps into the film society movement. The quartet had already discovered the wonders of independent cinema and world cinema through the Chitralekha Film Society, founded by filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Kulathoor Bhaskaran Nair and others in 1965.

“By the 1970s, the Chitralekha Film Society had started weakening a bit and we wanted to do something to take the film society movement forward. We decided that the new film society would not be limited to VSSC alone, but would be based in Thiruvananthapuram city and open to the general public. Soorya Krishnamurthy, who was back then a young engineer in VSSC, also offered to help us. People working in various sectors soon joined us and the society was registered with 18 members,” says George Mathew, one of the two surviving founding members.

The group wanted their first programme to be big enough to make a wide impression. Just as they intended, the seven-day film festival featuring some of the remarkable independent films of that era, became a huge draw. The Kalpana Theatre at Pattom, which has now been replaced by a shopping complex, was the venue of the festival, inaugurated by the then Chief Minister C. Achutha Menon.

Most of the films were obtained by the society members directly approaching the filmmakers and securing the print. The films which were screened included Mrinal Sen’s Chorus, Satyajit Ray’s Devi and Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne, Mani Kaul’s Aashad Ka Ek Din, B.V.Karanth’s Chomana Dudi and G.Aravindan’s Uttarayanam. “Though Uttarayanam was made in 1974 and won a National Award in 1975, it was yet to have a public screening due to the issues with the producer. We took a lot of effort and convinced the producer that the Chief Minister wanted to watch the film. Since it was the first public screening, Aravindan asked us to let his wife Leela and son Ramu also to watch the film by paying the ticket fee of ₹5. We were supposed to pay ₹7,000 per day to Dawood Sahib, who owned the Kalpana Theatre, but he told us to not worry about the money as attracting such a big crowd for the kind of films being screened itself was a big deal,” reminisces Mr. Mathew.

By the time the festival was over, the film society’s membership had increased to 400. Soon, Mrinal Sen came down to the city for a retrospective of his film organised by the Chalachitra Film Society. By 1977, the membership increased to 1,400 and Tagore Theatre became a permanent venue. New memberships were frozen for a decade due to lack of space to accommodate all members at the screenings. In 1980, the film society launched ‘Close Look’, a film magazine, which was popular among film buffs during the years that it was published.

“By 1985, with the popularity of television programmes, the film societies began weakening. Still we continued to soldier on with initiatives like film festivals focussed on a particular country every month. In 1996, we launched the Trivandrum International Film Festival, which continued for 18 years. The Society has also been presenting the Aravindan memorial award since 1992,” says Mr. Mathew.

The Society even ventured into production, by funding Aravindan’s documentary ‘Contours of Linear Rhythm’ on artist Namboodiri. Though hardly active now, the fellow travellers of the film society got together this week to reminisce about the good old days on the occasion of its 50th anniversary.