About
To disseminate Indian art and culture and achieve 'integration through culture', primarily through classical dance and music festivals, theatre, film screenings and retrospectives, and visual arts programming.
Soorya Stage and Film Society was founded in 1977 by the artist and cultural impresario Soorya Krishnamoorthy in Thiruvananthapuram. [Atlas Assessment] It is best known for the Soorya Festival, a months-long programme of music, dance, theatre and film widely described as one of the world's longest-running cultural festivals, and for a sustained film-society movement that brought world cinema to Kerala audiences.
Soorya Stage and Film Society is the parent organisation behind the Soorya Festival and its various strands (dance, music, theatre, film) already profiled elsewhere in this Atlas. It was founded in 1977 in Thiruvananthapuram by Nataraja Krishnamoorthy, popularly known as Soorya Krishnamoorthy, then a scientist at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The society originated as an offshoot of Chithralekha, an earlier film appreciation society run by filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan, which lapsed after Gopalakrishnan's departure. Soorya Stage and Film Society is registered in Kerala under registration number 216, headquartered at Soorya Chaithanya, Thycaud, Thiruvananthapuram. Krishnamoorthy has separately served as Chairman of the Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi and as Festival Director of the International Theatre Festival of Kerala (ITFOK), both already profiled in this Atlas, reflecting his broader institutional role in Kerala's performing arts sector beyond Soorya itself. The society has grown to claim over 30,000 members with chapters in more than 30-40 countries across Europe, the Gulf and Asia, and has been recognised by the Limca Book of World Records as the largest cultural society in Asia. Krishnamoorthy has also converted part of his personal residence in Thiruvananthapuram into a free-to-use, 400-capacity black box theatre with gallery seating for artists.
Founding & Leadership
Soorya Krishnamoorthy (born 1951, Kottayam) worked as a scientist/engineer at ISRO from 1972 before founding Soorya. Beyond leading the society, he has chaired the Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi, served as Festival Director of the International Theatre Festival of Kerala, served three terms as Director of the Kerala State Film Development Corporation, and been a member of national and state film award juries. He received the President of India's National Award for Stage Craft and Direction in 1996 and was named Limca Book of Records' 'Man of the Year' in 2003.
Initiatives & Portfolio
Young dance and music talent.
30-40+ countries.
Soorya Stage and Film Society's significance lies in its status as a genuinely grassroots, volunteer-driven cultural organisation that has sustained itself and grown internationally for nearly five decades under a single founding figure, without government or corporate institutional backing. Its founder's overlapping roles, leading Soorya while also chairing Kerala's state performing-arts academy and directing a separate major state theatre festival, illustrate how concentrated a small number of individuals can be within Kerala's cultural institutional landscape. The organisation's stated philosophy of 'integration through culture', explicitly targeting a general public audience over a specialist arts-going one, has been a consistent thread across all of Soorya's various festival strands.