COCHIN FILM SOCIETY
 

As the president of Cochin Film Society, I am happy and proud to have presided over the birth of this centurial issue. An offspring in the most primary meaning of the term 'issue' of the long productive life of our Society, this hundredth issue embodies all our intense aspirations. It carries our hope of reaching out to society at large, to whom cinema, today is the most powerful cultural medium.

 

This introduces another issue: the present performative context of the term 'issue' which means 'to put in circulation'. Through this 100th issue, we are not only circulating serious reflections on cinema in all its aspects - aesthetic, political, sociological, but also circulating ourselves, asserting our long untiring presence in the domain of film activism. It embodies our pride in having been the only film society in Kerala who has an unbroken screening history of almost a quarter of a century.

 

At the same time, as a film society, committed to the dissemination of good cinema, we strongly believe that mere screening of films is not the main issue. What is really at issue is the very rationale of film societies. In order for a very serious film culture to issue, one has to begin at the mind-root level. With this project in mind, we have charted out film courses, workshops and festivals for college and school children and for rural communities. 

 

I sincerely believe that the contents of this current issue vindicate our commitment to serious cinema. We have been fortunate to get reputed resource persons and committed film activists as our contributors, and I thank them for their whole-hearted co-operation.

 

Indeed, the use-value of our 'Sequences' must be sought in its consequences. I sincerely hope that the consequences of this 100th issue of our 'Sequences' will be both intellectually provocative and culturally productive. 

 

Prof. C. S. Jayaram

President, Cochin FIlm Society

Member, Executive Committee, Kerala Lalithakala Akademi