Culture's celluloid canvas

Neville Tuli is back. And this time, it's films rather than art that is leading his cultural enterprise.

On now at Osianama at Liberty, the cultural centre at the well-known south Mumbai cinema hall that Tuli unveiled last year, is the 365 Days a Year Film Festival, a unique continuous festival of films curated around a particular theme, each theme changing every two months.

Showing now, for instance, is the Animal-Human-Nature Continuum Fest, films based on animal welfare and environmental issues, among them retrospectives and tributes to masters such as Werner Herzog, Jean Painleve, David Attenborough, Beatrix Potter and Walt Disney. An earlier theme was Womanhood, which showcased films by 100 acclaimed filmmakers, mostly women.

That's not all. Panel discussions and discussions dubbed Master Class, involving leading lights of cinema, also form part of the programme. These have become fairly popular – the last one with actor Naseeruddin Shah had a crowd of over 800 turn up to listen to the actor talk about his life and art. Similar enthusiastic crowds turned up for Pritish Nandy, Prakash Jha and Farah Khan. The cine club at Osianama has managed to enroll 4,000 members in the span of just a year.

"After 20 years of work and focus, I find myself very close towards fulfilling the educational vision I had visualised at the start of my journey in 1993-94. It has been a rollercoaster, to put it mildly, with great success and failure, much misunderstanding and clarity, deep resentments and joys, radical transformations and stagnancy," says Tuli.

He is referring to the financial and legal troubles that have beset him over the last few years when those who had invested in Osian's Art Fund, which he launched at the height of the Indian art market boom in 2007, alleged he had not paid them the returns he'd promised. In fact, he is yet to repay his loans.

Tuli, to give him credit, has never denied his troubles. "I have not gone anywhere and I have not turned away from my obligations."

For a while, of course, he did go under the radar. Osian's continued its auctions, but given the blip in the art market, they didn't do as well as they once did. With Osianama at Liberty, however, Tuli seems to be back to what he says he's always wanted to do – educate people about the riches of culture.

Tuli has built up a significant archive of rare books, journals, magazines, film and theatre memorabilia, art works, sculptures, prints and craft objects. He's already put up much of it on the Osianama website, which also has other details such as a record of art auction prices. "Only by spreading knowledge can we hope to grow as a nation," he concludes.