The vice-president of the Film Federation Societies of India Premendra Mazumdar said that he was proud of Manipuri cinema which had bagged 36 National Film Awards within a short period of 47 years.
While delivering a lecture on the topic “Present Scenario of Film Society Movement in India” recently during the FFSI International Women’s Film Festival 2019 held at MSFDS Auditorium in Imphal, Mazumdar said that apart from Manipuri cinema, none of the regional cinema in the country had achieved such a remarkable feat.
He praised the celebrated Manipuri film Loktak Lairembee as one of the best films that travelled across the globe for nearly three years.
Directed by Haobam Paban Kumar, the film which was made with a budget of Rs 11 lakh tells the tale of a fishing community living on floating biomass in Loktak Lake who were ousted from their houses due to government intervention in 2011.
The film fetched the Golden Gateway for the best film with Rs 25 lakh in cash from JIO MAMI Mumbai International Film Festival 2016, according to reports.
Mazumdar further added that Loktak Lairembee was screened in three fully packed houses at the Berlin International Film Festival. The three houses had a capacity of 800 seats each.
Mazumdar said that among the northeastern states, Assam has four to five film societies and Manipur and Tripura have one each.
He further added that the Federation has 350 affiliated film societies in India. However, the majority of film societies in the country are located in Kerala where there are 118 of them.
After Kerala, West Bengal has the second highest number of film societies and there are 60 of them in the state.
Mazumdar also said that apart from those film societies registered under Societies Registration Act, there are more than 100 campus film societies affiliated to the federation.
He added that many universities, engineering and medical institutions of the country have opened campus film societies which is encouraging students to see a platform for filmmaking as a career.
He suggested that the universities, institutions and colleges in Manipur may open campus film societies to watch good films and educate themselves about film culture.
The vice-president gave an example of Jadavpur University which has opened graduate and post graduate courses in film studies.
The three day FFSI International Women’s Film Festival 2019 was jointly organized by the Federation of Film Societies of India, Film Society of Manipur and Manipur State Film Development Society from Friday to Sunday.