FilmIndia (1940)

August 1540 FILMINDIA The exhibitors need very little persuasion to show these newsreels — a discreet hint from the local police official being enough. The rub is that they have to pay and the money goes to the Twentieth-Century Fox. The first news item of a little over thousand feet put up by the Fox people has outlived its usefulness. It has several scenes showing the might of France and a talk on what France is going to do for us. After what France has actually done for us the whole episode in the said news-reel sounds ridiculous. But what do the Fox people care? They are making money and France our "ally" with her "mighty" resources is still there — an evidence of stupidity and inefficiency. Some one tells me that for "The Day in the Indian Army" the military department paid the cost of production to the Bombay Talkies. If it is true, here is another example of "sacrifice". The correct procedure is that the Film Advisory Board should buy news-reels and propaganda films at cost from the producers and distributors and hire them out from a central distributing organization to the exhibitors. If any profits are made in the process, these profits should be spent on other items of propaganda. In any case any individual exploitation of the present war opportunity must be stopped. Had I been in Mr. Newbery's place, hiring out war news to exhibitors every day, I would not have agreed to accept the membership of the Film Advisory Board and least of all to become its Vice-Chairman. By the very nature of its purpose and mission, the Board needs members who can make sacrifices, and not turn war into one more opportunity for making money. TOPICAL THAT BECOMES HISTORICAL While I welcome the production of news-reels by Wadia Movietone and Bombay Talkies with the war as an excuse, I hope that some other producers like Prabhat and Ranjit also take advantage of the present news consciousness and launch a full-fledged news-reel and educational films production progrrmme as it is time that our country is given this type of entertainment fare regularly. By cutting down the length of our feature programmes by a thousand feet, a place could be made for film biographies, news-reels and educational films within the same programme time. That brings to my mind the narrow-minded policy of the Indian National Congress in giving out the monopoly of filming the annual Congress Sessions to one firm, regardless of the inquiry whether the firm getting the monopoly is capable of doing the work satisfactorily and distributing the film all over the country quickly enough to retain its news value. In all other countries of the world, all national meetings are open not only to all professional news-reel men but also to the amateur brigade. To quote a recent instance: Nanak Motwani of Chicago Radio Co., — as usual — got the monopoly of filming the Ramgarh Congress held on the 20th March. Only in the second week of July — four months after filming the event — Nanak could show the films to the journalists. The delayed enthusiasm has taken away all the news in the said news-reel and made it a historical document now. And yet Nanak Motwani, with his sweet persuasive ways, continues to impress the unimaginative executives of the Congress and get his monopoly, depriving several more efficient news-reel cameramen in the country. This is a good example of the Congress democracy in effect. OUR BEST NEWSREEL MAN. Talking of newsreel cameramen and their work, you can not escape Dr. P. V. Pathy, by far the best newsreel man we have in India. Amir Bai Karnatki bursts into beautiful melody in "Narsi Bhagat" a Prakash devotional. 11