Aashay film club turns 25

PUNE: One of the oldest film clubs in the city, Aashay film club enters its silver jubilee year on August 1.
According to co-founder Satish Jakatdar, the film society/club scene has changed in the city over the last three decades. With a growing number of cinema lovers, there is a greater need to cater to their artistic tastes by going beyond mere film screenings.
It all started with half a dozen cinema-crazy people like Satish Jakatdar, Prasannakumar Aklujkar, Pradeep Apte, Vandana Bhale, Deepak Deodhar, Prabhakar Wadekar and Mukund Sangoram, who needed no occasion to discuss the wonders of celluloid.Thus began Aashay Film Club on August 1, 1985.
"We were a bunch of college friends, who got addicted to cinema. In depth discussion on French film noir, European classics and Satyajit Ray, were routine. Later this addiction turned to passion and it became a mission for us. That's when we set up Aashay with barely 15 members from all over the city," says co-founder Jakatdar.
The very next year, the late Pu La Deshpande and his wife, Sunitabai became the club's life members and brought along many more members into the fold, with the membership rising to 400. Screening equipment like 16 mm and 35 mm film projectors were hired to screen films at venues like Kale Hall at Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, the amphitheatre at Fergusson College, Lady Ramabai Hall and the main theatre at the Film and Television Institute of India.
"Aashay was able to create curiosity about world cinema among Pune's cinema lovers. We would get generous prints of world cinema from all over the world, through the embassies and consulates. We constantly held screenings for students at the University of Pune, S P College, Fergusson College and MES Garware College. Not to forget, week-long festivals held every year, each of which was dedicated to legendary filmmakers like Akira Kurasawa, Ingmar Bergman, Alfred Hitchcock and the like," says Jakatdar.
Aashay survived due to interactive programmes, says founder-chairman, Prasannakumar Aklujkar. "We held programmes combining cinema and other art forms like music, theatre, literature and dance, thus bringing together people to understand the linkage between the art forms. For instance, 'Granthbol,' a festival of Marathi comedy films, supported by lectures and a book exhibition, was held in the late 1980s. The club survived because we showcased both parallel and world cinema, instead of focusing only on one aspect. Through generous donations from Pu La and Sharad Pawar in the 1990s, we were also able to buy our own 35 mm projectors," says Aklujkar.
The club also held its first-ever course on film critiquing for UoP's journalism students in 1995. "Through the late 1980s and early 1990s, we got good donations. But these days, it's not very easy to even get a sponsorship for screening films," laments Jakatdar.
With the onset of globalisation in the early 1990s, satellite network, cable TV and CDs arrived. "This dealt a slight blow to our club activities as films began to be easily available. Today, people can easily download films or watch them on DVDs and even cell phones," says Jakatdar.
But the Asian Film Festival that Aashay introduced in the city in 2004, began to receive positive response. "It went on till 2008, attended by over 3,000 delegates. This year, we are planning to organise it in December," he says.
On the occasion of its 25th year, the 1,800-odd members of Aashay have other programmes to look forward to. For instance, a festival on films adapted from the works of Nobel laureate, Rabindranath Tagore, and screenings of other European classics.