FilmIndia (1945)

SUBSCRIPTION RATES: The annual subscription, for 12 issues of "filmindia", from March 1943 is : INLAND : FOREIGN: Rs. 24 Shillings 50 Subscription is accepted only for a collective period of 12 months and not for a small period. Subscription mone* s^ou'd be remitted only by Mo.ey Order or by Postal Order but not by ch-quts. V P P.s will not be sent. filmiiidia PROPOI ETORS: FILMINDIA PUBLICATIONS LTD. 55, SIR PHiROZISHAH M£HTA ROAD, FORT, BOM3AY Telephone: 26752 Editor: B vUUIt AO PA TEL Vol. JANUARY 1945 No. 1. ADVERTISEMENT RATES: The advertisement rates are as follows: Per Insertion Full Page inside Rs. Half Page inside Rs J Page inside Rs. h Page inside Rs. 2nd & 3rd Cover Rs. 4th Cover Rs 400 210 120 150 500 600 1st Cover Rs. 1,000 The cost of the advertisement should be sub.nitted in advance with th? o.oer The adve tisemeit will be subject to tne terms and conditions of our usual contract. Glcltitecis 0| %e fat Nowadays we hear so much of post-war planning and so much of plotting for the future that the present seems to have become almost inconsequential. The architects of the future have already lost count cf the present and are preparing blue-prints for the times to come giving us an optimistic picture of prosperity and glorious opportunities. Almost all these professional architects know pretty well that not a hundredth of their proposed plans will ever take concrete shape after the war, for several reasons by now patent to all. And yet they have all conspired to hypnotise themselves and their countrymen into believing that the nation is going to have a golden age no sooner the distant thunder of the guns is silenced. They want us to believe that our prosperity is coming from overseas as the first vital article of import of the post-war period. Time will prove the error of this optimism. Post-war planning, because it sounds a good slogan phonetically, has now become an industrial epidemic and as such has spread in almost all aspects of human life. It wouldn't be surprising to discover a blue-print somewhere for growing post-war babies as so much fodder for the future war machine. It is, therefore, not shocking to find that the clumsy milk-sops who call themselves the pillars of our motion picture industry should catch the general infection and because of their weak intellectual resistance talk of preparing a blue-print for the post-war progress of our film industry. They have also begun flirting with the slavesoother "post-war planning" which the rulers have given to their subjects shivering with the fever of freedom. Producer Ramabrahmam of the South probably thinking that the burden of the future was his personal trust has come out with a post-war blue-print giving his plans and hopes for the Indian film industry. Mr. M. A. Fazalbhoy has hopped to America and demands at least 10,000 theatres for India, so that he can supply them all with R. C. A. reproduction equipment. Mr. Chandulal Shah wants to turn the production studios into liquor shops which open and close according to the Government licensing rules. Mr. V. Shantaram is reported to have our <z^s.ade.ti & c^fJa£iiii£z± ^Ws. wii.fi a cJ^ajz^Lj and purchased a 200-acre plot at Chembur for his future studios and in doing so, he probably thinks that all the post-war planning for the whole industry has been done at a single, stroke. Mr. K. S. Hirlekar wants to take a delegation of producers on an inspection tour to Moscow and Hollywood to introduce new studio technique forgetting the most important fact that none of the proposed delegation own even a pig-sty for a studio. The different producers', distributors' and exhibitors' associations all over the country have all prepared different conflicting plans for the future of the industry. The Motion Picture Society of India and other competing societies have also added to the spate of new plans. While all this planning by the industry is going on, the Government which will ultimately endorse all plans has plans of its own. In the Government plan, the Indian motion picture industry is just forgotten as an item of no consequence. Thanks to the Hon. Sir Ardeshir Dalai, who has perhaps not yet seen an Indian picture, being too busy with the Hollywood ones. What all these architects of the future, however, forget is the human element which plays the most important part in the progress and stability of the motion picture industry, which, under the excuse of art, is essentially an industry of profits and as such is governed and influenced by the primary fundamentals of capitalism other capitalistic industries all over find m which we the world. Thinking that picking up money was an easy job in this industry of entertaining millions, right from its beginning the Indian motion picture industry attracted the speculative sharks for its financiers. These speculators, without the least germ of art in them and without any spark of patriotism and with their conscience in their pocket, turned the industry into a temporary field of exploitation for big profits and quick returns without even winking at its artistic demands or its national importance. In the course of thirty years, through the routine evolution of mortgages, the early speculating financiers came to be known as the studio-owners and incidentally as the producers. Though now they produce pictures on their own, their profit instinct still remains paramount and art 3