The Cinema of the World programme at Dubai International Film Festival served not only as a platform for international movies but also as a way to introduce new concepts to people.
The Cinema Travellers, a documentary by Shirley Abraham and Amit Madheshiya, is centred around two travelling cinemas that drive across rural India, sharing films with villagers who otherwise have very limited access to movies. The film, which took five years to make, focuses primarily on the lives of three men who put the show on the road, faced with a changing medium and a demanding audience.
“It is the story of three of the last keepers of the travelling cinemas of India; there are two showmen and one projector mechanic,” Abraham said. “It is a unit which is a cinema in a truck. They go to villages that have no access to theatre and project the movies, it has been happening for the last 70 years on just analog technology.”
Madheshiya spoke about his biggest challenge during the filming process.
“There are always financial challenges for making movies and these challenges are directly connected to the creative challenges we had to face” he said. “The greatest creative difficulty was knowing that you have a great story, but to be able to express it in an artistic way where you get only one chance at impressing your producer was very challenging.”
