Picture this: it's a free show

Free public film screenings in Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru help a community grow alongside cinema

- Shephali Bhatt

n Tuesday afternoon, I found myself in a packed theatre at the National Museum of Indian Cinema (NMIC) in Mumbai for a screening of Thithi, Raam Reddy's award-winning 2015 Kannada feature. Two hours later, as the credits rolled, Reddy launched into a workshop about his journey as a filmmaker and the making of Thithi, warning the audience that it would last at least an hour and a half. Very few people left their seats.

Towards the end, he screened an unreleased trailer for The Fable, saying his upcoming film is in the "magic realism genre". During the Q&A, an audience member asked what that meant. Reddy explained: magic realism treats the magical not as spectacle but as fact, woven into the everyday setting of the plot.