Five Film Clubs In Mumbai That Every Movie-Lover Should Check Out

Started off in 2007, in collaboration with Prithvi Theatre and Vikalp: Films for Freedom, Vikalp@Prithvi is a film club that organises monthly series of documentaries and short films from around the world and country. The club is curated by Anand Patwardhan, Simantini Dhuru and Chandni Parekh. Chandini regularly posts about the upcoming screenings, so keep a watch out. Join the Facebook community here.

The screenings are free and are held at the Prithvi Theatre, Juhu on the last Friday of every month, 7pm onwards. Previously, they’ve screened Martin Scorsese’s ‘No Direction Home‘, Amudhan R P’s ‘Vande Mataram – The Shit Version‘, Anand Patwardhan’s ‘Images You Didn’t See‘, Alisa Lebow and Cynthia Madansky’s ‘Treyf‘ and many more of the prolific films.

Founded by Pranav Ashar, president and CEO of the Enlighten, the film society has approximately 3,000 members. Their focus is to get the wonders of world cinema onto the Mumbai screens. Hence, in collaboration with Matterden Cinema which regularly screens foreign language films, members can go and escape at this small and quaint theatre in Parel. They have been defunct for a while now, but feel free to go and catch a movie at Matterden irrespective.

Currently we’ve been told they aren’t accepting members. However, that shouldn’t put you off, because anyone and everyone is free to go and catch a movie there. Stay updated with events here anyway.

In the memory of the legendary filmmaker, Bimal Roy, the film club was set up in 1997 to organise screenings of the old Bimal Roy classics by Rinky Roy Bhattacharya. The club describes itself as ‘tribute to the silent master of the cinema’ – and it’s fitting. They have in the past organised preview clips, behind the scenes – which have all been curated by Roy. Screenings happen at National College & Russian Cultural Centre.

Roy tells us its easy to join the club, just need to be willing – download a form here, go there and submit it. Holding onto the traditional values and cinema, this club isn’t as regular in its screenings as Roy tells us, “it’s expensive running a club with everyone watching a film online” but the spirit is alive with a monthly screening they try organising for their members.

Membership: Lifetime Membership INR 5,000 {plus annual maintenance charges of INR 500}, Annual Membership INR 1,000 {plus admission charges of INR 100}, Students & Senior Citizens INR 750 {plus admission charges of INR 100}

The FD Zone is a club started by the Films Division India’s forum that organises documentary film screenings and discussions. The screenings benefit from the vast archive they have access to as they bring it to the public. The screenings are curated by filmmakers and film enthusiasts from across India, and are generally held on Saturdays, 4pm onward at the RR Theater of Films Division – also open and free to all.

Just join the Facebook community here, and be in the loop.

Another exciting film club one can be a part of is the Shamiana Short Film Club. Started off by Cyrus Dastur – the idea is to garner the film loving community without the restrictions of a membership or subscription. Therefore, most of the screenings are free and open to all.

They organise film screenings across the country in Mumbai , Bangalore, Goa, Jaipur et al. and the world – for the latter Cyrus promises to keep us in the loop. They also travel with their films to schools, colleges and other institutions – as free flowing entity. For the Mumbai film enthusiasts, The Pantry is the place to go for their monthly screenings. Join the 1 lakh member-plus Facebook community here and be in the loop of the screenings.

#LBBTip: They’re open to documentary suggestions and submissions.