Calcutta Film Society

Calcutta Film Society
Formation5 October 1947
Purposefilm society
Location
AffiliationsFederation of Film Societies of India[2]

Calcutta Film Society was India’s second film society in the city of Kolkata (then Calcutta), West Bengal, India. It was founded in 1947, just after independence, by Satyajit Ray, Chidananda Dasgupta, Sunil Janah, RP Gupta, Bansi Chandragupta, Harisadhan Dasgupta and others. The 1925 silent film directed by Sergei Eisenstein, The Battleship Potemkin was the first film screened at the film society,[3] which over the years developed the reputation of having the "most cine-literate audiences in the country".[4][5] It was revived in 1956 with the efforts of stalwarts like Dasgupta, Vijaya Mulay, Diptendu Pramanick and Satyajit Ray.[6]

CFS revival at Kolkata 1956.jpg

Today it is seen as an important harbinger of New Wave cinema in India, as it allowed first hand access to world cinema to local viewers and in time started the film society movement in India.[7]

  1. ^ "Calcutta Film Society". Archived from the original on 15 July 2011. Retrieved 18 September 2010.
  2. ^ Eastern Region : List of Societies Archived 2011-07-21 at the Wayback Machine Federation of Film Societies of India website.
  3. ^ Calcutta Film Society Archived 25 November 2013 at the Wayback Machine Satyajit Ray website.
  4. ^ "The film fan frat". Business Standard. 4 September 2010.
  5. ^ Banerjee, Malini (25 May 2008). "The End". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 27 May 2008. Retrieved 2 August 2018.
  6. ^ Cherian, VK (2016). India's Film Society Movement: The Journey and its Impact. Sage Publications India Pvt Ltd. p. 264. ISBN 9789385985621. Retrieved 25 April 2019.
  7. ^ Armes, Roy (1987). Third World film making and the West. University of California Press. pp. 118, 123. ISBN 0-520-05690-6.