Inside Lens S2018E20 - A Tent, A Truck & Talkies

Anup Jagdale is probably the only one struggling to not just survive the business inherited from his father but also to keep alive the unusual tradition of touring cinema. Anup always wanted to pursue a 9 to 5 job for a secured future but circumstances led him to join the business of touring cinema after his father met an accident and paralysis made him bedridden. Anup Touring Talkies, a 53-year- old legacy drives across the remotest corners of Maharashtra (India) in its multicolored 73-year- old truck lugged with an 87-year- old cinema projector along with over-a-century old heritage – The INDIAN CINEMA. It is said there were thousands of them in the 1970s. But, with the advent of new means of entertainment, their numbers reduced from thousands to hundreds, hundreds to ten and finally ending up with the only one that is tirelessly carrying its old scratched reels down to the rural spaces. Despite all, the arrival of Talkies in villages is a major event, a sort of　enchanted interlude in the inhabitants' life, who often live isolated. But for how long will Anup fight and sustain this journey where not only the ways of entertainment but demands of the audiences are changing rapidly. Will it be the end of the touring cinema?