Federation of Film Societies of India

Federation of Film Societies of India (FFSI) is the umbrella body of film-screening societies in India. FFSI is currently a member of the International Federation of Film Society that has its Central Office in Paris. The international organisation is an associate member of UNESCO.

FFSI was established on 13 December 1959 with its Registered and Central Offices in Calcutta (now Kolkata) by the coming together of a group of officials representing six existing film societies in the country, namely Calcutta Film Society, Delhi Film Society, Madras Film Society, Patna Film Society, Bombay Film Society and Roorkee Film Society. The moving spirit behind the concept was the eminent film director-writer-music composer-screenplay writer-graphic artist-type font designer-short story writer Satyajit Ray who along with his colleagues from the Bengali language film industry came together to join hands to bring international cinema and Indian regional film efforts before a generation of young audiences who were till then provided only with commercial Indian cinema fare. The first Executive Committee of this Federation comprised Satyajit Ray as President, three Vice-Presidents, namely Ms Ammu Swaminathan (Madras), Robert Hawkins (Bombay), S.Gopalan (Delhi), two Joint Secretaries, Ms Vijaya Mulay (Delhi) and Chidananda Dasgupta (Calcutta), Diptendu Pramanick and Abul Hasan as Joint Treasurers, and members R Anantharaman, K L Khandpur, Jag Mohan, A Rehman, A Roychowdhury and Ms. Rita Ray.

Two former Prime Ministers of India, Mrs Indira Gandhi and Mr Inder Kumar Gujral held office in FFSI during its formative years. Elsewhere, FFSI members included internationally and nationally acclaimed members of the Indian film industry and from the field of letters and included persons like Mrinal Sen, Ritwik Ghatak, H K Sanyal, Subrata Mitra, Harisadhan Dasgupta, Nimai Ghosh, Anil Chatterjee, Mrs Aruna Asif Ali, Shyam Benegal et al.

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