Get a reel good feeling

Terence-Hari Fernandes

Three years ago, entrepreneur Archit Malhotra and filmmaker Terence-Hari Fernandes came together to create Lekh Haq - a cinema company focused on decentralising film financing and helping audiences find community-driven films, while also working at the intersection of inclusivity in cinema. Then, during the lockdown, they began hosting watch parties for people to join in, view, and share their mutual love for cinema. But since the beginning of the pandemic's second wave, they have transformed these watch parties to what they now call the Feel-Good Film Fest - a weekly film screening held every Saturday. "We started this initiative because the second wave has been tough, and I think we all need some more positivity around us," Malhotra explains.

A still from the movie The Half Of It, which will be screened later this month

The weekly screenings are followed by an online session called the Insider Session, where a panel of experts dissect the film's themes and nuances for audience members in an interactive group on Discord, a messaging platform. Last week, the group screened the Malayalam film Kumbalangi Nights, with an Insider Session held about the film the next day. "Our Discord group is a growing community now, and it helps us capture people's attention and bring them to a space where we have relevant conversations on films. In our recent online session, we had so many questions from people that it became hard to wade through them at one point," says Fernandes.

Archit Malhotra

Malhotra adds, "This effort originates from a space where we realised that there's not much of a culture of trying to understand cinema [in India] and Bollywood has taken up so much media attention that a lot of great regional cinema gets overshadowed."

In view of Pride Month in June, for the next few weeks, the group will be screening the movies Loev, The Half Of It, Bulbul Can Sing, and Portrait Of A Lady On Fire, following them up with the online sessions, though the line-up of experts hasn't been revealed yet. So, keep an eye on their Instagram page linked below to find out in due course.

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