Filmsaaz - International Film Festival

We run things out of the Cultural Education Centre on Lal Diggi Road, which is right inside the Aligarh Muslim University campus. Being near the University Circle means we are surrounded by students and teachers all day long. This film festival is something we put together every year, and it involves a lot more paperwork and emails than you might think. Our workspace is usually covered in movie posters and old schedules. We are not a professional media house or anything like that. It is mostly just a bunch of us who like films and want to show them on a big screen here in Aligarh. We spend a lot of our time worrying about whether the projectors will work and if we have enough chairs for everyone who shows up. Sometimes a film file is corrupted or the sound system starts buzzing, and we have to fix it while people are already sitting in the dark. It is a bit of a scramble every time, but we are used to it by now. We do not have a big budget or a fancy office. We just use the space we have and try to make the festival happen. It is a lot of volunteer hours and late nights in the auditorium. We are just regular people who appreciate the history of this university and want to add something to the local culture without making a big fuss about it.