Father Gaston Roberge: father of film studies, great lover of Calcutta, the founder of a first-of-its-kind film centre and the proponent of seeing Indian cinema in an Indian context.

The many facets of Father Roberge were relived on Sunday evening as a group of filmmakers paid their tributes to the Jesuit priest-turned-film academic who died on August 26. He was 85.

Filmmakers Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Buddhadeb Dasgupta and Goutam Ghose were among the participants in the virtual session, moderated by film critic and journalist Saibal Chatterjee.

Gopalakrishnan described Father Roberge as the pioneer of film studies in eastern India before listing his “very very important” contribution.

“I had very few opportunities of meeting him…. But I knew about him because he is the one who started film appreciation as a subject of study in the eastern part of India, particularly in Bengal,” Gopalakrishnan said.

“Original Indian work is not very accustomed to the West. This I have understood from the experience of my life.... Father Gaston Roberge has really contributed a great deal to the fact that Indian cinema has to be understood against the perspective of our culture. That’s very very important.

“When you see a small thatched house, you don’t see facilities attached to modern life; you seem to consider them poor. As long as the person gets what he needs, he is not poor…. Despite not having all the facilities of modern life, people are not unhappy. They are happy with what they have. Our greatest contribution… renounce, and be happy. This has to be understood.”

The webinar on the life, works and legacy of Father Roberge was organised by the St Xavier’s College (Calcutta) Alumni Association in association with The Telegraph. The event was supported by the Film Federation of India.

Father Roberge founded Chitrabani, a centre for film studies, with the help of Satyajit Ray, in 1970 and remained its director till 1996. He taught in the film studies department of St Xavier’s College, Calcutta.

He was the founder-director of the UGC’s Audio Visual Research Centre, which later became Electronic Multi Media Research Centre under St Xavier’s College, Calcutta.

Adoor Gopalakrishnan at the webinar Screen grab

Father Roberge lived on the college campus and for the past few years had been in the infirmary for priests.

“Father Roberge was a French-speaking Canadian from Montreal. He developed love, attraction and respect for India and its people since his formative years. He was highly impressed by Tagore’s Gitanjali and that might have been the reason for him to volunteer for India in general and Calcutta in particular as a young priest,” Father Dominic Savio, the principal of St Xavier’s College, said in his introductory address.

He spoke of Father Roberge’s association with Satyajit Ray.

“He watched Apu’s Trilogy on the eve of his maiden journey to Calcutta 60 years back and that had made an indelible impact on his mind… he had deep respect for Satyajit Ray…. He waited for many years to learn the Bengali language and get acquainted with the Bengali culture to have a meaningful discourse with Ray on hisfilms. He met Ray and became friends and author of books on the legendary filmmaker,” Father Savio said.

Ghosh said Father Roberge was an “inspiring figure for filmmakers like us”.

“He believed that you have to study cinema, learn cinema just like you learn a language and grammar. You have to know about great filmmakers and what they did.”