Silent films of the 1920s, such as Baburao Painter-directed Sati Savitri (1927), classics such as V Shantaram’s Aadmi (1939), and various award winning Hindi and regional films directed by veterans such as Satyajit Ray, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Guru Dutt and Hrishikesh Mukhejree, are among the close to 1,500 films being restored by the Centre.

The initiative is part of the Information & Broadcasting Ministry’s National Film Heritage Mission (NFHM) to ensure long-term preservation, restoration as well as digitisation of content in a bid to build the country’s film heritage.

The high-level committee of the NFHM, which includes directors such as Santosh Sivan and Jahnu Barua, met recently to take stock of the initiative.

The Mission will acquire archival material, for which it has written to various State Film Development Corporations, major production houses, distributors, producers guilds and individual collectors, an I&B Ministry official said.

The NFHM plans preventive conservation of about 1.32 lakh film reels and 2K restoration of about 1,145 feature films and 1,108 short films.

It also plans to do 2K digitisation of 1,200 feature films and 1,600 short films.

All this will be done over the 12th and 13th Plan periods. The Centre has allocated about ₹597.41 crore for the project.

To hire consultancy

The Mission is in the process of hiring a consultancy firm to engage with stakeholders, ascertain best practices of preservation and restoration, develop a request for proposal for indentifying implementing agencies for restoration, among others.

The committee has also decided to assess the condition of films with the National Film Archives of India and identify those that need immediate digitisation and restoration.

It also proposes to form a sub-committee for the selection of films for digitisation, restoration, approval of standards for conservation, digitisation and restoration, as also technical evaluation.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW