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C.F.I. NOTES
Mrs. Moultrie
We regret to announce that our Honorary Treasurer and Assistant Honorary Secretary, Mrs. Margaret Moultrie, has resigned from the Committee of the Catholic Film Institute. After many years of very devoted voluntary service she has been compelled to return to her home to attend her father in a grievous illness. We shall remember her and her family in our grateful prayers. Only those who were constantly in our office know the extent to which she gave herself to the work of mothering the C.F.I. For several years we operated from her pleasant little Chelsea house. Blue Cottage, which must have been an almost intolerable incubus to her at times, coming as it did, between her and many of her normal social contacts. We are very grateful for her services to the C.F.I. Our problem now is to find someone to fill her place, no easy task.
Our Future
People often wonder why it is that the C.F.I. is always in a state of financial embarrassment. The reason is that the very nature of our work is non-productive, financially speaking. Our first function is to give Catholic information about films in accordance with the directives of the Papal Encyclical. This involves the support of an office and minimum staff in addition to the priest who, again in accordance with the directives of Vigilanti Cura, has the task of supervising the work. The only sources of income available are the subscriptions of members and donations of friends. Focus, our organ, has long ceased to pay for itself, in view of the high cost of print and the fact that we dare not raise the price as was done by all other Catholic periodicals a year or
two back. The commissions we get from acting as agents for film companies in running the Film Library is a great help to us but only covers a fraction of the inevitable office expenditure. Incidentally, the amount of writing and phoning often necessary in dealing with our clients, sadly reduces the modest sum which comes to us as commission.
There seems little alternative but to resign ourselves to the fact that we shall never be completely solvent. Our overheads amount to about a £ 1,000 per annum, not a large sum as expenses go but difficult for us to obtain under present circumstances. The modest attempts at film production which we made have proved how difficult it is to recover even the basic costs of material and laboratory charges, which were all the expenses we allowed ourselves. We have been disappointed that not more was done to show our films up and down the country by the various Catholic societies, but there it is. We know that advertising is the thing but that costs money too.
Lectures and Conferences
We continue to be asked to give talks and lectures on film subjects and this we are glad to do within the limits of the possible. Perhaps we should make more effort to organise positively propaganda talks; seeking for an increased membership for the C.F.I. Often, however, one lias the impression that we have been invited more with the hope of filling up a series of talks than with the prospect of arousing interest in Catholic film action. We are glad to notice, however, that little by little Catholic Film Societies are increasing in the country. They all have their grand beginnings, their difficult period and