Reel India

Udwin has been in love with India ever since she shot her recent film West is West here,and also travelled to various film festivals across the country. “Students at film festivals in small towns responded to world cinema in a sensitive and intelligent way. A good film has the power to open the minds and engage people in a productive conversation,” she says.

It was this experience of witnessing the “extraordinary effect of films” and her consequent interaction with students that made her embark upon a journey to promote film education across India. Armed with the idea,Udwin has found patrons in Indian film personalities such as Om Puri,Gulzar,Ila Arun,Leela Samson,Nandita Das,Shyam Benegal and Feroz Abbas Khan.

People’s Cinema is a non-profit education initiative that will bring world class cinema into the lives of India’s youth. It is a mobile film club that will travel across India — state by state (starting with Delhi NCR and Haryana),college by college and university by university — with a screen,a projector,some film videos and a visiting filmmaker. “It’s a youth-centric programme that will reach around 1.2 million students,and we hope to cover 1,600 colleges in the first year,” tells Udwin,who has constituted eight mobile teams so as to cover eight different venues at one time.

“I want children to break free from the Bollywood masala clutter and see real cinema,and after we’re gone,they should be able to run these film clubs on their own. That’s a pledge we will take from them and check on them as well,from time to time,” she explains.

This round-the-year initiative will be run free of cost. But how does one manage the logistics and finances? “That’s where we have asked brands to associate with us and sponsor the programmes,” informs Udwin,who is joined in the march with her “movement administrator” in India,Neha Dhawan.

People’s Cinema movement,Udwin adds,has been designed to contribute to highlighting social issues and expose India’s youth to the richness of a new experience.

And once she has set the ball rolling,Udwin will return to the UK and start work on her next film,which is set in Africa and England. “It’s a film inspired by the Sir David Frost’s interview with Sammy Gitau,a slum dweller in Nairobi who passed out of Manchester University with honors,” she says. The working title for the film is The Matare Project. But for now,it is “the people’s project” that is keeping Udwin engrossed and enthused.