I&B Ministry to push project to save rare movies

The plan envisages setting up of 30 new vaults — at a location contiguous to the 19 existing vaults of the National Film Archive of India (NFAI) in Pune — to store and preserve the country’s cinematic legacy. A sum of Rs 30 crore would be spent to construct these 30 new “temperature-and-humidity-controlled” vaults, ministry sources said. The Jayakar Bungalow, which houses the NFAI, is where the Mission will be housed and the NFAI will be the executing agency for the project.

“There is an immediate need to set up proper storage facilities for our cinematic legacy. Also, we need to introduce restoration techniques to digitise and clean up some of the rare and old prints that have been either lying in the National Film Archives or elsewhere. And most importantly, we need to have professionals in place to assess which films need to preserved on a priority basis,” a senior I&B Ministry official said

Two key officials would be at the helm of the Mission — a Project Director who would be a professional with expertise in film restoration and preservation and the Director of the NFAI. A committee will be set up to decide which films need to be taken up first for restoration or preservation. “Already, over 9,000 films have been preserved in NFAI. Then, there are a whole lot of rare celluloid reels that are scattered all over the country, some with producers, others with private individuals. The Mission will make efforts to procure those prints and restore them,” the official said.

Once the Mission becomes functional, the government has plans to monetise the project by making the digitally restored films available for sale on DVDs or through web-downloads. “Most of our rare and exceptional cinematic works have been lying in archives for decades now. With a National Film Heritage Mission in place, the idea is to digitise these works and make them available to the masses while preserving their original celluloid reels. These cinematic works can also be made available for research work,” an official said.