Much has been written and celebrated about the film industry in India. As one of the largest, most multilingual, and vibrant cinema centres in the world, it produces more than 1,000 films each year. Ironically though, India is severely under-screened, with just over 9,000 cinema screens today—compared to about 40,000 each in the United States and China. In the face of onerous taxes, legal complications, the dominance of multiplexes, and the widespread reach of OTT platforms, 16,000 single-screen theatres have shut down over the past 25 years. Of those that have survived, some have taken on new avatars, reinventing their architecture to serve new communities.
When my co-producer and research partner, Mary, and I set out on this journey, we were drawn to the architectural and human resilience of Indian cinema halls. Designed by some of the first professionally trained Indian architects, they are representative of much more than just popular modernism. They have been symbols of family, neighbourhood, city and small-town life, and even national pride. Monuments to an inclusive India, single screens were often the only spaces where audiences of different classes, castes, genders, and religions could come together.
We began to focus on the stories of the theatres themselves, and the people whose lives have been connected to them—those who created and preserved the cinemas, and those for whom they were meant. As we met and listened to a diversity of individuals and communities in various parts of India, the contours of a rich and complex cinematic landscape began to emerge.
Finally, a decade later, we are ready to present our documentary film: Cinema Pe Cinema.