What ails Suchitra?

Prominent writers, artistes, filmmakers and musicians gathered staged a silent protest against the 'corporatisation of Suchitra Film Society' on Sunday. DH PHOTO BY SK DINESH

A pall of gloom has descended over Suchitra Cinema and Cultural Academy in its golden jubilee year. Located in Banashankari, Bengaluru, it ranks among the five oldest film societies in India.

A trust formed to obtain government grants for cultural activities is now dominating over the mother organisation and asking it to vacate the premises.

Prominent writers, artists, filmmakers and musicians gathered last Sunday for a silent protest.

The mother organisation, Suchitra Film Society, was launched in 1971. The rumblings began in 2015 with Puravankara, a real estate developer, coming into the picture. With the corporate company getting a decisive role in running the trust, it is no longer working in harmony with the film society.

The trust is demanding Rs 50,000 for the use of the office and Rs 37,500 a day for use of Auditorium 1 from January 2021. It costs Rs 22,500 to screen three films at the smaller Nani Angala. The steep increase has made it impossible for the film society to conduct its activities at the Suchitra Auditorium, which its members built it brick by brick. Those associated with the organisation since its inception say this a prime example of what happens when control of a cultural space is handed over to a corporate company.

“We haven’t been able to conduct our activities since March 2020, when the country was reeling under the pandemic,” says B Suresha, National award-winning filmmaker and president of the film society.

In 2015, Purvankara came forward to fund the renovation of Suchitra Auditorium under its CSR scheme. At its insistence, the trust deed was modified and the organisation came to be called Purvankara Suchitra Cinema and Cultural Academy (PSCCA).

Members of the film society say they were not aware of this modification. The change of name did not have the approval of the members of the society. The change came to the notice of its members only through the September 2015 issue of the newsletter of Suchitra.

The then-president of Suchitra Film Society, Prakash Belwadi, failed to provide convincing answers when members asked at the annual general body meeting how the name was changed. To this day, the question remains unanswered.

Those heading the trust refused to show the modified trust deed and agreements to the film society, and also to its own members. Five years later, in 2019, the trust agreed to allow members to inspect the documents. The film society then constituted a sub-committee. Its members were shocked when they read the documents. They placed their findings before the society’s executive committee.

What they found

The sub-committee discovered that a representative of Puravankara had been made a permanent member of the trust, while the president of the Suchitra Film Society, earlier a permanent member, had been turned into an ‘invitee’.

More importantly, the director of the Karnataka government’s Department of Kannada and Culture, a permanent member, was dropped, with no reason being assigned. The name of the trust was not only changed to begin with Puravankara, but a bank account was also opened in the name. Why did the trust keep these amendments ‘top secret’?

Prefixing the name of a corporate entity with the name of the trust resulted in a public outcry. Well-known writers Vivek Shanbhag, M S Sriram and T P Ashok, and theatre personalities K V Akshara and Raghunandana, condemned the change. They said the change was “improper” and “unethical” and “detrimental to the autonomy of the trust”.

Bowing to the pressure of the theatre community, the trust dropped ‘Puravankara’ from its name. When the film society demanded rescinding all “illegal” decisions, the trust removed B Suresha and theatre person Ganesh Shenoy from their positions as permanent members of the trust.

Most writers, filmmakers, and theatre personalities associated with the organisation are opposing what they describe as the “back-door entry of corporate bodies into public institutions”.

Will the silent protest by the artist community free Suchitra from corporate domination?

Suchitra@50

Suchitra Film Society, founded in 1971, stepped into its fiftieth year in August. Inaugurated by Satyajit Ray, it has spread alternative film culture in Bengaluru by screening the best of world cinema. It has inspired scores of Kannada film makers and organised retrospectives of celebrated directors.

In August 2020, Suchitra Film Society launched year-long golden jubilee celebrations and held an online festival, with masterclasses, workshops, and seminars on cinema. It plans to develop an 800-seat auditorium and launch a film school to mark the golden jubilee. “But this crisis has come in the way,” says Suresha, president of Suchitra Film Society.

Gallery

In 2017, artists launched a movement to oppose the government’s decision to hand over Venkatappa Art Gallery to a private entity. The government eventually dropped the idea.

(The writer is a Bengaluru-based senior film critic).