he multiplex business enters a lean phase twice a year. Once during February-March, when the school exams are on and the next around October, just before Diwali, when the major production and distribution houses postpone their releases waiting for the biggest festive season in the country to blow over. What does a multiplex do in such a scenario?

To get around this and make the optimum use of capacity, multiplexes have been getting into activities like food festivals, fun fairs, art exhibitions and the like. This year, Mumbai-based Fame multiplexes, part of Shringar Cinemas Ltd, decided to package the whole affair under a season it calls alternative programming. To start with, in the first week of October, Fame's multiplexes in Mumbai (Malad and Kandivali) played host to the 0110 Digital Film Festival 2005, which presented films from the digital arena around the world. Following this was a line-up of films featuring a selection from Bengali, Tamil and Malayalam cinema and also a collection of digitally re-mastered old Hindi films like Jhumroo and Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi. A couple of plays too were thrown in.... more