Saba Dewan New Delhi

A brief introduction to all the aliases

CAC - Campaign Against Censorship came into being in July 2003 when a group of filmmakers based in Delhi protested against the requirement of a censor certificate at MIFF 2004. Within days the Campaign became an all India movement with filmmakers from across the country (and even abroad) joining hands on the issue. Eventually faced with a call by CAC for an international boycott of MIFF2004 the government was forced in September 2003 to revoke the censor certificate requirement at the festival.

Over the past two years, as a logical extension of its initial mandate, the CAC has grown to become a Campaign of protest against all manner of censorship in different forums.

Vikalp: Films For Freedom - was the film festival organized by Campaign Against Censorship members in Mumbai, February 2004, to protest the back door censorship of films at MIFF 2004 through an unfair and arbitrary selection procedure. In protest a large number of CAC members whose films had been selected at MIFF decided to withdraw from the festival. Their films along with the films that had been rejected by MIFF were screened at Vikalp 2004, Mumbai.

The collection of 58 films screened at the Vikalp-- Films For Freedom Festival in Mumbai has subsequently been screened at festivals organised by the FFF city groups/individual members in Bangalore, Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata.

Vikalp is also the name of the e group that facilitates discussion within the 250+ members of Films for Freedom spread all over the country.

FFF:  Films for Freedom is the name that CAC adopted post Vikalp 2004 for its larger platform of over 250 members since its activities became multi pronged to include, besides the Campaign against Censorship, screenings of documentaries in different spaces, archiving of films at different city centres, discussing the need for better contracts, in short promoting the documentary and the interests of the documentary community. The Campaign Against Censorship however remains an integral part of the FFF's mandate and has been our guiding principle in all engagements with the government and with film festivals that have attempted to impose censorship in any form.

The organizing principles of Films For Freedom

Films for Freedom, an all India platform of filmmakers connected to each other through the Vikalp e group, has as its basic units the city groups in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Kolkata that function in a federative manner in relation to FFF. These city groups have chosen to call themselves by different combination of names chosen from the recent history of the larger group. Therefore while the FFF city group in Mumbai is called Vikalp Mumbai, the city group in Bangalore is named Films for Freedom Bangalore, Delhi has chosen to call itself FFF Delhi and the city group in Kolkata is named Vikalp Bengal.

Each of these city groups have their own e groups - Vikalp Mumbai, CAC Delhi, Films for Freedom Bangalore and Vikalp Bengal where discussions pertaining to the local activities and interests of members are posted and shared.

City group members meet regularly to discuss the activities taken up by the group in the city as also debate issues, which might pertain to the larger all India FFF membership. Minutes of all city groups meetings are posted on the local city listservs as well as on Vikalp to be shared with the larger membership of FFF. While city groups are autonomous in decision-making about activities pertaining at the local level (as long as they fall under the broader purview of FFF's informal mandate) any discussion that has a bearing on the larger All India membership of FFF is ratified only after a debate and consensus has taken place on the Vikalp listserv.

Over time as the activities undertaken by the city groups have grown so also have new entities taken shape. Thus, for example, Vikalp Mumbai has been organising the Travelling Vikalp collection that has been screened at different cities across the country. The group also organises monthly screenings of films in Mumbai. Similarly, FFF Delhi has created the Delhi Film Archive (DFA) with a view to archive documentaries, other film related material that can be screened, used to generate discussions by the group. The Delhi Film Archive regularly organises screenings of films and discussions in Delhi and elsewhere.

All members of city groups are members of the all India FFF platform of filmmakers. However there are also a substantial number of FFF members who do not belong to any city group either because there is no FFF group organised so far in their area or because they choose to be members only of the All India FFF platform.

Saba Dewan is a filmmaker based in Delhi.