Film Club at IIT Madras was started in November of the year 1961 (information courtesy Prof. Kolar, IIT Madras Heritage Center). It was started due to the enthusiasm of Mr. Pritam Lal Kapur (BT 1960-65). First movie (Imitation General) was shown in the corridor of Central Workshop in October of 1961 and subsequently film club was formed. Upon completion of Open Air Theater (OAT) in 1962, Film Club started screening movies in OAT. An interesting article by Mr. P.L. Kapur about the initial days of film club can be found here. Historically, we used to show mostly English movies. Of late, due to popular demand, we show regional language movies also.
The projection facility in OAT was using analog prints (reels) for first 52 years. A new 2K Digital Projection Facility (17000 lumens) was installed and inaugurated on 15th of June 2013 by Prof. Bhaskar Ramamurthi (Director, IIT Madras) and two representatives of the 1975 batch of alumni. This was made possible due to generous contributions from the following alumni: Niranjan Nilakantan (B.Tech-CS, graduated in 1996), Kalpathi Suresh (B.Tech-EE, graduated in 1986) and the Batch of 1975. "Soodhu Kavvum" was the first movie shown in digital format. Photos of this inauguration can be found here. Subsequently, movies are being shown in digital format.