Each DVD has an old-fashioned library card at the back. He estimates that there are some 12,000 titles now.
#THE INDIAN DVD FULL#
The ground floor has mostly English and Hindi films and TV series, but go up a winding staircase and you’ll find yourself in a low-roofed attic chock full of world cinema.Ĭhandaria sources all the DVDs himself. Today, the store sells phones and electronics in addition to lending DVDs and Blu-rays. It opened in the pre-DVD era, when Manish Chandaria, after converting part of his father’s general store, began renting out VHS tapes in 1982 (his younger brother, Bakul, managed the business with him from 1990 to 2015).
#THE INDIAN DVD MOVIE#
Ten minutes from Movie Empire, the Sarvodaya Video Centre is an even more venerated haunt for foreign film fans. Even today, I remember the titles I rented: Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Mamma Roma, Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle Of Algiers, Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’Avventura. For someone who had read of Andrei Tarkovsky and Sergei Eisenstein and Jean Renoir but had never seen them, as it were, in the flesh, this was close to a religious experience. Ten years ago, on a two-month training programme in Mumbai, I visited their store on Carter Road and fell in love, not just with world cinema (which I had recently started devouring) but with the beatific vision of shelves stacked with DVDs. I should mention my own debt of gratitude to Movie Empire. Even today, the selection is broad and eclectic, covering the familiar (Federico Fellini, Jean-Luc Godard, Pedro Almodóvar) and the obscure (the short films of D.W. Hollywood films comprised the bulk of their trade but what set them apart from all but a few rental stores was their world cinema collection. A decade ago, however, the library would receive around 200 calls and lend a hundred DVDs on average every day. “With difficulty, we get about 100 customers a month," he says. Though they have some 11,000 members in their database, Ramesha admits that the current numbers are “extremely down". Sheikh’s preference runs to classic Hindi and English films Ramesha drops auteur names like Roman Polanski and Yasujirō Ozu and confides towards the end of our chat that he’s trying to make it as a director. Ramesha speaks often and with authority Sheikh is more circumspect. The day-to-day management, though, has remained in the hands of Sheikh and Ramesha since the start. Over the years the ownership has changed, as has the location after eight years on Carter Road, it moved to Pali Naka in 2011, and to its present location on 16th Road, Bandra-West, four months ago. Movie Empire was started in 2003 by Arun Goenka. “This will be the last year." As if to confirm this, during the 40-odd minutes I spent at Movie Empire, the phone rang only once, and there were no walk-ins. I don’t think DVDs have any future beyond two-three years." “It won’t be that long," the store’s other manager, Izaz Sheikh, chimes in. “Even the downloaded prints have become better. “On Hotstar and Netflix, you can get the films almost for free," B.K. Everyone seems to agree that streaming services and downloads-legal and otherwise-have effectively ended the rental business. Ask the remaining outlets and they’ll tell you, not long at all.
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