Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

It’s either Spiderman slinging webs across New York, or Danny Ocean planning yet another heist with his crooked cronies. Fun enough, but there are a bunch of Calcuttans who would rather go beyond mainstream Hollywood into world cinema. But where do they get their fix of films?

“You start by watching retrospectives at the Calcutta film festival and shows organised by the embassies at Max Mueller Bhavan and The French Association,” says Anindita Chatterjee, a corporate film-maker.

“Once you are part of the circuit, you get to know of people who’ve access to the latest films,” she adds. Personal contacts play a crucial role with legal and pirated or smuggled films forming part of the prize exchange.

Nilotpal Mukherjee, a film buff and the director of an advertising agency, says: “There are a couple of shops in Five Star Market in Kidderpore where you might find a complete Kurosawa collection. But it’s more by chance than design, unlike in Palika Bazar, New Delhi, where films are stocked according to demand.”

One can go along for screenings at Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI), though officially, only the students are allowed. But the institute has an extensive library of films. Some film buffs use their friends at the institute to access the collection.

“Libraries at the film studies departments are some of the best sources,” says Sumana Chakraborty, a former student of SRFTI.

With the advent of broadband, the Internet has become another source of off-beat films. Downloading from websites could, however, take as long as 14 hours.

Drishya, a film society, boasts of an extensive collection of films — from Satyajit Ray to Latin American and African film-makers like Eliseo Subiela and Ousmane Sembène. It organises screenings at art galleries, corporate meets and even at police stations. With an annual membership fee of Rs 100, anyone can attend. But the society is virtually invisible.

Seagull Arts and Media Resource Centre and film societies like Eisenstein Cine Club and Chitrabani remain the standard drop-in where one can go and watch movies. Seagull’s collection includes works by Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai, Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf and French directors like Jean-Jacques Annaud and Jean-Pierre Dardenne.

Cinema Paradiso at 33 Rowland Row and Raja Electronics on AJC Bose Road are good for borrowing most of the legally sourced works in world cinema.

Says Pooja Das Sarkar, a knowledge-sector employee, who is making a documentary on street vendors in Salt Lake: “From Cinema Paradiso, I watched Jim Jarmusch’s Coffee and Cigarettes, as well as a part of Kieslowski’s Dekalog and a documentary on Che Guevara.”

Making copies of films borrowed from parlours is an accepted practice, she admits, as originals are often difficult to access, and always expensive.

Cinema Paradiso charges Rs 3,000 as the initial deposit (of which Rs 2,000 is refundable) and Rs 100 as the cost of borrowing a film for three days. So, many fall back on pirated material. Bangladesh remains a rich source, both for pirated and original DVDs.

Says Sumana: “There’s a shop in Satadweep market in Gariahat where you find three-film pirated DVDs for Rs 125.”

Searches often lead to surprise discoveries. Pooja chanced upon a copy of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind at GD Market in Salt Lake. Pirated, of course. “A lot of the films I got to see were from the private collections of film-studies students,” she says.

Occasionally, rare films can also be found in roadside stalls of Chandni Chowk. But there are dangers to buying off the street.

“Some of the DVDs do not run. The covers are often misleading. But I have also found Passolini’s The Canterbury Tales in a roadside stall in BBD Bag,” says Kaushik Chakraborty, a bureaucrat and a film buff.