Edmonton Movie Club

Introducing Canadian audiences to Indian cinema

When Madhan Selvaraj moved to Edmonton as a student in 2003, the city was a much different place. The population was growing and becoming more diverse, but like many newcomers to the region, Selvaraj found it hard to stay connected with the culture and entertainment he was familiar with from back home in India.

“I couldn’t watch films in my language, which is Tamil, here in Edmonton,” he explains.

“I was in Toronto for a few years and the odd film would come to play at some independent theatres, but they’d never release them in Edmonton. It didn’t make sense to play those films here, when you had to pay for transporting boxes of film reels only to get 100 people watching.”

But as theatres moved away from using traditional film reels in favour of more easily transported digital versions, Selvaraj saw an opportunity. He wanted to start opening up Edmonton theatres and audiences to more international titles.

“The transition to digital really helped. It just broke the barrier, we were able to bring every single film much more easily,” he says.

In 2012, Selvaraj started the Edmonton Movie Club, a social enterprise focused on bringing films from India to the capital region. The goal was to let audiences in Edmonton explore topics like immigrant identity, while also shining a spotlight on the diversity of entertainment options coming out of India.

“Cinema is a great medium to educate the wider community about the diversity of Indian culture, because India on its own, it’s a very diverse country,” says Selvaraj.

“People always think of Bollywood, that’s the flashy name, but there’s much more. India is one of the world’s largest producers of films, making 2,000 films per year.”

Now, as the executive director of the Edmonton Movie Club, Selvaraj works to bring a selection of those films to Edmonton throughout the year. The Club also plays an important role in the annual India Film Festival of Alberta, and has helped to bring showings to other Canadian cities, like Halifax, Sydney, Toronto, Red Deer and Calgary.

“We actually broke the shackles in Canada. We were able to bring films no one heard of to the theatres,” he says.

One of the most rewarding aspects of presenting Indian cinema to Canadian audiences, Selveraj says, has been bringing people together and building a community of moviegoers.
“People from India, sometimes they don’t get the opportunity to watch these movies, so they would lose interest. Now we’ve created that opportunity and developed that interest in watching films, together as a community,” he says.

Over the past 12 years, the Edmonton Movie Club has developed strong connections with film producers in India, which has led to film premieres and celebrity appearances in Canada. Selvaraj has even helped to bring a Netflix production featuring Indian celebrities to film in Sherwood Park.

The Social Enterprise Fund played an important role helping the Edmonton Movie Club build this foundation for Indian cinema in Canada. While the club receives grants from a range of sources including federal and municipal governments, financing from SEF allowed the club more financial stability throughout funding cycles.

Selvaraj is proud of the success the Edmonton Movie Club has seen to date, but he’s also clear about improvements he’d like to see. The plan, he explains, is not to keep expanding in scope, but to fine-tune their operations and give audiences the chance to see more Indian cinema, year-round.

“We can’t really get bigger right now. We’ve already reached that point,” he laughs. “What we need to do is get more permanent staff so we can deliver programming on a continuous basis.”