The National Cinema Day is being celebrated all over India today (23rd September) with ticket prices being slashed to Rs. 75 for the entire day, in around 4,000 participating cinemas, both multiplexes and single-screen. Footfalls showed a huge jump as people visited cinemas at what seemed to be dirt-cheap rates. Looking to the phenomenal response of the public, Rumi Jafry said today in a session at the Celebrate Cinema event, which is going on at Subhash Ghai’s Whistling Woods International, that the government must declare one day as Cinema Day so that it can be celebrated with pomp and show all over the country year after year.
The suggestion was met with great enthusiasm in the session. Rumi’s logic stems from the fact that if we can celebrate February 14 as Valentine’s Day, January 12 as National Youth Day, January 15 as Army Day, January 24 as National Girl Child Day, and so on and so forth, it would be in the fitness of things to have a day earmarked as Cinema Day.
The film industry would do well to take up the matter with the Centre to do the needful in this regard. The celebration plans could be drawn up later.