When Rhea Parameswaran left her hometown of Bangalore, she missed three things: her family, the food and the films.
That love for Indian cinema inspired her to co-found the Indian Cinema Collective (ICC) – a UCLA club that explores Indian cinema through film screenings, panels and guest speaker events.
The Indian film industry produces the most films of any country. It produces over 2,500 films annually in more than 20 languages, while the United States makes around 500 films per year, according to the World Intellectual Property Organization.
The largest component of the Indian film industry is Bollywood – the Hindi-language film industry.
ICC hosted a screening of the 2012 Bollywood movie “English Vinglish” – which follows an Indian housewife who secretly enrolls in an English-speaking course and finds her self-confidence – in collaboration with the UCLA Center for India and South Asia on Thursday. The event also included a discussion of gender and Indian cinema with senior lecturer Esha Niyogi De and Purnima Mankekar, a professor of gender studies .
Students in the club look forward to more movie screenings and social events that create community, said Parameswaran, a second-year statistics and data science student.
Beyond well-known Bollywood films, Parameswaran said the club members also hope to host movie screenings featuring lesser-known films. By being inclusive and ensuring the club screens a variety of films, Parameswaran added that she hopes the club can showcase India’s cultural diversity.
“By showcasing solely Bollywood films, we’re missing out on a lot of really amazing movies and really valuable cinema,” she said.
Anushka Agarwal, the club’s co-president, said the largest challenge the new club has faced is securing enough funding to host events and movie screenings. She added that clubs could not apply for Undergraduate Students Association/Board of Directors Programming Fund until late October, which caused delays in their event planning, she added.
“You can’t screen movies here without paying the AV (audio-visual) fee and since we don’t have any money to pay the fee, we haven’t been able to do any screenings,” said Agarwal, a second-year neuroscience student.
All student clubs must pay an $109 fee for using installed AV equipment – including projectors, according to the UCLA Events Office website.
Despite these challenges, the club aims to serve as a space of shared culture and belonging – especially for international students who want to strengthen their connection to their homeland – said Krithika Praveen, ICC’s social media manager.
“Everyone misses being able to watch Bollywood movies or Indian cinema with family and friends,” Praveen said. “Creating that community here is what we envisioned when creating this club.”
Agarwal said one of her hopes for ICC is to host an event with a famous actor like Shah Rukh Khan or Aamir Khan. But for now, she said the club will continue to host a range of events, including screenings, academic discussions about cinema, conversations with film professors and social events.
Despite focusing on Indian films, ICC welcomes students of all backgrounds who are interested in exploring cinema and are looking for a new community to do so, Parameswaran said.
“If you just want to explore a different area of cinema or if you like Indian cinema, or even if you don’t, I would still say, ‘Pull up to the events,’” she said. “We’re open and we’re inclusive and we want everyone to feel comfortable to join.”
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