NDFC, recreating its past glory
Its art gallery — largely devoted to works by young and student artists — is as deserted as the Thar most days and hours. A café has sprung up in a roomy corner (not that many know of it). And my ears quaked with fright as soon as I sauntered into the enormous lobby. Repair work was underway and a steel sheet had fallen with a booming crrrrrash. Not that anyone complained.
The main Nehru Centre building at Worli — which old-timers compare to those vintage cigarette tins — houses offices of banks and business groups and since the early 1970s, two floors have been occupied by the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC). Inspired by Nehruvian ideals to promote science and the arts, the Centre’s planetarium does attract crowds of school children and tourists. Its exhibits could surely be updated though, but then so could the rest of the complex. Like that lonely art gallery, or the expansive auditorium which hosts commercial theatre essentially.
I’m sure I’m not the only who’d break into a double jig if that auditorium encouraged experimental plays (at discounted rates), besides opening up for film society screenings. Aah, there I go dreaming again.
On the upside, the NFDC’s sixth floor office has slickened up belatedly. Gone are the stacks of files, mouldy celluloid tins and stuffy cabins. The corporation’s office has a spanking, new open-house look, and if there are a couple of cabins, they are enclosed by see-through glass sheets. How’s that for transparency? Plus visitors are immediately offered mini-bottles of mineral water. Neat.
Alas, the corporation no longer prioritises film financing as it did in the 1970s, which spawned hundreds of groundbreaking films — now clubbed as part of the parallel cinema movement. From the look of things, it’s seeking integration into the monolithic Bollywood structure, by conducting marketing bazaars (Ship of Theseus first came to notice there), organising script workshops and facilitating sales at overseas festivals. In fact, it was quite surprising to see the high-budget Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, imprinted with the NFDC logo, on its opening credit titles.
I suspect that much of the new NFDC ethos has been initiated and sustained by its managing director Nina Gupta (not to be confused with the actress, please), who instantly agreed when I asked her for a video interview on the New Wave movement of the 70s as compared to the current independent film boom. No hemming-and-hawing from this MD.
Within that Nehru Centre structure, at least in some of its spots, times are a changin’. Mercy be!
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