Seems very strange, but Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) is setting up cinema halls at its highway fuel stations. Cinemata, a Sony (NYSE: SNE) Entertainment Television company will be providing films for the initiative, and these will be beamed via digital distribution. Digital distribution, says Keshav Shenoy, GM (Highway Retailing), will prevent piracy. BPCL has launched a pilot project in Gujarat, and if they go ahead with it, BPCL will have cinema halls at 300 fuel outlets across India. More at the Hindu.
Something of an aside: This reminds of a documentary film I’d seen at the Cinefan Film Fest a couple of months ago – Comrades in Dreams (review)- which featured a traveling cinema hall in rural India called “Anup Theatre”. Forget digital distribution, these are cinema halls operating in a large tent with villagers crammed in. Low cost entertainment. My favourite quote from the film was from Anup Jagdale (in pic, praying in front of a film reel), who owns the travelling theatre: “Why would anyone here want to watch Titanic? They’ve never seen the sea so why would they care about a sinking ship.”
i disagree with my dear friend “Mr. Anup Jagdale” … when he says, ” Why would anyone here want to watch Titanic? They’ve never seen the sea so why would they care about a sinking ship.” Cinema is all abt imagination and not just the daily stuff, always … y wud they want to watch a film at all. if we go by ur logic… first of all there are no logics when u talk CINEMA … lol..its all FELT … i think where there’s no sea, they’ud love to see a sinking ship … rather than watching a man shitting in nearby wilderness …
IMAGINE .. GET OUT OF UR SELF MADE LIMITS … they (audience) will help u … serve pasta in bihar and they’ll gobble it up …. life’a ll abt experiences … and cinema provides u to them, helps u create them and also disseminate them … WATCH OUT … !!!