The first time I walked through the doors of Liberty Cinema in south Mumbai, I felt a time capsule unlock. It was a splendid art deco experience. There were incandescent lights in a velvet lobby, and a carpeted staircase on one side, leading up to the balcony. A small kiosk in the corner sold popcorn for only Rs 30. The walls had sepia-toned photographs of old film actors. And there were wooden pillars supporting the intricate plaster of Paris work on the ceiling.
It was like a scene from Midnight in Paris. I had travelled back in time.
I was studying journalism in Mumbai at the time, and for weeks my dissertation had been at a dead end. A friend told me about the Osianama film festival at Liberty. I was exhausted, and the festival seemed like a pleasant breather. Little did we know we would come to spend hours on end at the theatre.
About Liberty
Liberty Cinema is a single-screen art-deco-style theatre in south Mumbai. The theatre is called ‘Liberty’ as it was built in 1947 – the year of independence. At the time, the theatres in south Mumbai mostly screened only English films. The founder Habib Hoosein built the theatre so Hindi films could be screened. Mehboob Khan’s Andaz went on to be the first commercial film to be screened at Liberty. The theatre no longer screens commercial films.
Hoosein’s son, Nazir Hoosein who now owns the theatre, wants to convert the Liberty into a cultural hub for south Mumbai, according to the website. Today the cinema is recognised as a Grade 2A heritage building, and is perhaps one of the finest examples of an Art Deco cinema in the world.
Empty Pockets Have a Place to Go
The Osianama festival is still on, and is free of cost. As students, never before exposed to such an array of world cinema, Liberty opened up a window to the world for us. We sat in the back of class and carefully chalked out a schedule for the films we could watch, without having to miss our lectures. A film marked with a star next to it was a must-watch. The star meant it had received a 100 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes (perhaps the Roger Ebert of our times).
As students living away from home, the exorbitant Mumbai rents, taxi fares, and eating out left little in our pockets. Liberty gave us refuge. By making the festival free, the theatre not only made cinema accessible to us, but allowed us to experience some of these films the way they were perhaps intended to be.
A 1200-Seater Film Appreciation Class
For a month it seemed like we were attending a very large film appreciation class. To enrol, all we needed to do was show up. The theme of the festival at the time was ‘Womanhood’, and the films we watched were indeed a bitter-sweet love letter to womanhood. Among others, we watched Bandit Queen, which made us cringe in our seats; Wajda, the story of a 12-year-old Saudi girl wanting to ride a bicycle; Nights of Cabiria, an Italian film about a streetwalker looking for love, and finding herself.
Whether we liked the film or not, the impact some of them had was incredible. Some nights after the show were spent talking about the film, over cigarettes and cups of tea. It spurred on ideas, and the desire to know more about the world. Some films made us laugh, and sometimes we walked out of the theatre, not knowing what to do with the pit in our stomachs. It was a month of intense emotion, and all because the theatre made it so easy for us to enjoy these films.
The Golden Curtain
On some nights, after the last show at Liberty, we would watch the curtains fall onto the screen. The golden curtains came down in slow, hypnotic motion, and we would stand there, transfixed every time. As the city’s cultural fabric evolves, what gets left behind is a tradition of cinema, no longer cherished in an age of multiplexes and instant gratification. In times like these, here’s hoping Liberty Cinema manages to keep its curtains open.
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