FilmIndia (Jan-Nov 1942)

APRIL 1942 VOL. 8 No. 4. On The Cover NASEEM SUBSCRIPTION: The annual subscription, for 12 issues of "filmindia", is: INLAND: Rs. 8/FOREIGN: Shillings 181 Subscription is accepted only for a collective period of 12 months and not for a smaller period. Subscription money should be remitted only by Money Order or by Postal Order but not by cheques. V.P.P.s will not be sent. Change of Address: Two months previous notice is required for change of address. Loss of Copies: The publishers do not hold themselves responsible for loss of copies in transit as the copies of the subscribers ore sent under careful supervision. Selling Price: The price of a single copy from January 1942 is Ans. 121 inland and shillings 21 foreign. If any agent is found demanding in excess of this price, the publishers should be informed with tht requisite proof. Contributions: Only from qualified writers, contributions are accepted. Manuscripts sent by sundry contributors will be returned if only sufficient postage is sent to cover their return. Correspondence: No personal correspondence with the Editor is encouraged. Letters seeking information are replied to in the "Editor's Mail" section according to the importance and the suitability of such letters. Advertising: The advertisement rates are as follows: Full Page inside Rs. 150/ per Half Page inside Rs. 80/2nd & 3rd Cover Rs. 20014th Cover Rs. 300/ lst Cover Rs. 1000/ . Less than half page space will not be booked. The cost of the advertisement should be submitted in advance w%th the order. The advertisement will be subject to the terms and conditions of our usual contract. insertion » 99 99 99 filmindia Proprietors :— FILMINDIA PUBLICATIONS, Ltd. Sir Phirozshah Mehta Road, Fort, Bombay Editor: BABURAO PATEL Between the Devil and the Deep Between a stupid and unimaginative bureaucracy and a vainglorious, public leadership our country is gradually going to the dogs. Hundreds of instances can be cited to prove this opinion. Let us take a recent one in our own sphere. In the second week of February, the great Chinese leader and his beautiful wife, Marshal and Madam Chiang Kai Shek, paid an official visit to India and in an interesting short stay met the Crown representatives as well as the most prominent public leaders. It was the first time in the history of India, that the head of the great Chinese nation was paying a neighbourly visit to our country. It was an event of great historical importance and as such every little bit of it should have been recorded and preserved in the official archives of the nation. An exhaustive film of the visitors' activities would have been the most fitting method of bequeathing to posterity this event of great national importance. Officially, the responsibility of shooting the different incidents belonged to the Film Advisory Board, an institution set up by the Government of India for producing war-propaganda shorts, cultural films and documentary features. The Film Advisory Board had Director V. Shantaram, India's best film man, at its disposal — a man whose scaring flight of imagination and national idealism have given to our people several pictures which have turned our theatres into so many schoolrooms for a nation. Marshal and Madam were the guests of the Government of India and it would have been the easiest thing, for the Government to have kept a film producing unit moving all the time with the guests. If they had done so, historic events like: the Marshal-Mahatma Gandhi meeting; meeting with Jawaharlal Nehru and of course his important family; Madam's reception by the All India Women's Conference; lunch at the Birla House in Calcutta; Madam Chiang in an Indian sari with the Birla zenana and umpteen other incidents could have been taken for the ever lasting interest of the people of to-day and to-morrow. 3