Cinema Veriteacute;

But like a good film, there is more to the archives than meets the eye. As the reels unspool, the images that emerge don8217;t always make for pretty pictures. But they set one thinking.

Coloured by Numbers

IN the house of art, the science can be a bit baffling. For instance, the numbers: 37 people to look after an archive of 16,133 films, each of which needs to be documented, stored and physically examined for decomposition ever so often!

But that could be said to be a tradition with the NFAI. Born in the mid-8217;60s, it began with a half-century handicap that it has never quite been able to make up.

8216;8216;Very few people thought that preserving the rich cinematic heritage was important,8217;8217; says K S Sasidharan, director, NFAI. 8216;8216;So most of the films made in the earlier part of the twentieth century are irretrievably lost.8217;8217;

But he8217;s reluctant to single out NFAI for the blame. As a nation, he says, Indians are not very sensitive to heritage management. Till the time NFAI was established, people looked at cinema primarily as a mode of entertainment, not as an important sociological tool which should be carefully documented.

This lack of awareness8212;as commonplace in the film industry as among the general public8212;about the need for preservation as well as the facilities offered by the NFAI meant that archive officials would need to go hunting across the length and breadth of the country for landmark films, instead of the producers depositing their work voluntarily at the archives.

Officials at NFAI point out that though there is a mandatory acquisition system applicable on the archives, a mandatory deposit system is not part of the rules for the film industry. They crib that though producers seem to be confident of taking care of their material, there have been instances of films decomposing in laboratories in the absence of strict temperature and humidity controls, thus robbing the archives of valuable material.

8216;8216;The labs can process, not preserve. When the government has established an organisation for preservation and archiving, why don8217;t the producers take advantage of it?8217;8217; Sasidharan asks rhetorically.

Singed by the Fire

OVER the past couple of years, film producers have found a handy excuse in the fire that broke out at the FTII in January 2003. But, claim NFAI officials, even industry insiders don8217;t know that only 2-3 per cent of its accumulated material was affected by the fire: 97 per cent had already been transferred to a safe place.

8216;8216;Even that loss could have been averted if the nitrate vault that had been commissioned had been ready on time. But the civil construction wing of All India Radio, which was constructing the vault, overshot its deadline,8217;8217; says Sasidharan.

8216;8216;An accident can happen anytime, anywhere. But it8217;s also true that the material that was lost had nothing to do with Indian cinematic heritage. The reels that were lost were from the Albanian archive and belonged to Italian or French films,8217;8217; he adds.

Further, allege officials, some broadcast channels blew the incident completely out of proportion, claiming that invaluable films like Raja Harishchandra and Shamchi Aai had been gutted in the fire. NFAI officials say that is far from the truth: To be fir, these films have been subsequently screened for local audiences and sections of the media.

The Rot in the State

IF exaggerated media reports and a half-baked depository habit were the NFAI8217;s only bugbears, officials here would consider themselves lucky. But nature, too, seems to play the malevolent villain more often than not: The tropical climate of the city and its varying levels of humidity both play havoc with the delicate nature of film.

Since there is no way the clock can be turned back once the process of decomposition kicks in, technicians say they try their best to ward off the elements as long as they can. To counter the climactic conditions, for instance, the NFAI has nitrate vaults that maintain a temperature of 15-16 degrees C and humidity of 45-50 per cent for black-and-white films.

Technicians are also supposed to manually air the reels to release the harmful gases that accumulate in the can over time and accelerate the process of decomposition of film material. But this once-a-year process often gets pushed back to once in four or five years because of the lack of manpower enforced by a freeze on recruitments.

Shortages affect administration elsewhere as well. For instance, the NFAI does not have a restoration facility for its high-end equipment till date because of a funds crunch.

To save some of the more precious prints, NFAI recently launched a digitisation process. But this too requires deep pockets and permissions from the copyright-owner. Only a handful of silent films have been digitised as of now.

Twist in the Tale

DESPITE the odds stacked against them, NFAI officials claim they have been single-mindedly pursuing their objective of creating awareness about Indian cinema with research fellowship programmes and film appreciation courses. Students and researchers from countries like Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Australia have been attending these appreciation workshops.

To keep them abreast with all the developments in cinema, NFAI keeps updating its library, which currently boasts of more than 25,000 books on cinema and related arts, 16,000 films and more than 100 periodicals.

To help preserve highly unstable colour film, NFAI has earmarked another controlled temperature/ humidity facility for colour vaults. To be complete by 2007, the facility near Kothrud will have a 200-seater auditorium and a film-checking facility.

On the archival front, the NFAI is forever on the lookout for pathbreaking films, apart from national award-winning films and those that have won laurels at various state and regional levels. Recently it acquired Sant Namdeo from a distributor in Pune and Vani and Parda Nasheen from Bangalore.

8216;8216;We managed to acquire a film called India8217;s Struggle for National Shipping, made by a foreigner by the name of Paul Zils, just as it was on the verge of disintegration,8217;8217; says Sasidharan. 8216;8216;It came from the godown of Scindia Steam Navigation Company, now a public sector firm. The highlight of the film is the presence of four generations of the Nehru family in the movie.8217;8217;

Apart from restoring Satyajit Ray8217;s films, NFAI has been discussing a showcase for silent Indian films with the Museum of Asian Civilisation in Singapore. Some officials at Nice, France, are also in talks with NFAI to hold a festival of posters and still photos.

The Beginning

SO would it be right to be optimistic about the NFAI8217;s future? According to P K Nair, founder director of NFAI, the solution to most of the archive8217;s problems lies in a declaration of autonomy, backed by the assurance of government grants.

8216;8216;The responsibility for the preservation of a nation8217;s cultural heritage does not lie only with the government; it is the concern of the film industry and corporates as well,8217;8217; he says. 8216;8216;After all, we are preserving the products of the film industry. Hence they should co-operate with the archives.8217;8217;

The staff shortage is another sore point. 8216;8216;Only two or three of them are qualified officers, the rest of them are Class III or IV staff. Since they are not skilled, they can8217;t be given responsibilities,8217;8217; he adds.

Alam Ara: Hunt moves to PakistanM/b>
CELEBRATED, not seen. That8217;s the fate, unfortunately, of Alam Ara at the moment. Seventy-five years after it spooled out before an awestruck audience at Mumbai8217;s Majestic cinema on March 14, 1931, India8217;s first talkie survives only in sepia stills and, possibly, a few fading memories.

The only hope of a celluloid resurrection lies in Pakistan. Ajmal Kamal, editor of the reputed Karachi publication City Press, on a recent visit to Pune, told officials at the National Film Archive that it was possible a print of the film8212;distributed in that part of undivided India during its initial release8212;could be knocking around somewhere in his country.

8216;8216;There is no organised archival system in Pakistan, it8217;s more about private collections,8217;8217; says K S Sasidharan, director of NFAI. 8216;8216;So the hunt may take time.8217;8217;

NFAI officials aren8217;t complaining: They8217;ve been looking for a print of the film since the archives were established in February 1964 and they aren8217;t likely to run out of patience any time soon. And they8217;re reasonably certain there is no print available in India.

8216;8216;If there was one, we would have surely procured it,8217;8217; says Sasidharan. 8216;8216;The fact that it is missing is sad, since we boast of sizeable footage of the first full-length silent film Raja Harishchandra. We don8217;t even have a poster of the movie in the archives.8217;8217;

Alam Ara is a revolutionary film in many ways, as it not only ushered in the era of sound in the films, but also established the use of song and dance as the mainstay of Indian cinema. Starring seasoned actors like Master Vithal, Zubeida, Prithviraj Kapoor and Wazir Mohammed Khan, it featured the first song ever titled De de khuda ke naam pe pyare, thus making Wazir Mohammed Khan the first singer of the Indian film industry.

LOST038;FOUND
Preserved at the NFAI:
Raja Harishchandra 1913, directed by D G Phalke. The first full length silent feature
Lanka Dahan 1917, D G Phalke. An all-Maharashtrian cast, an all-myth story
Kaliya Mardan 1919, D G Phalke. Myth again, this time from the life of Krishna
Brick laying 1922, D G Phalke
Sukanya Savitri 1922, Kanjibai Rathod. Two women-oriented tales from the Mahabharata
Catechist of Kil-Arni 1923, T Gavan Duffy and R S Prakash. Catholic propaganda film, made to raise funds
Banga Darshan 1931, W J Moy.
Vani 1943, K Hirannaiah. The debut of legendary Kannada actress Pandari Bai
Parda Nasheen 1943, I A Hafesjee. A family drama starring Nargis
Sant Namdeo 1949, Keshav Talpade. A Marathi socio-historical
Lost landmarks:
Bilet Ferat 1921, directed by Dhiren Ganguli. A social satire on anglicised Indians
Bhakta Vidur 1921, D N Sampat. The story of a sensitive nationalist hero, played by the director himself
Saukari Pash 1925, Baburao Painter. The first celluloid tale of the clash between the heartless moneylender and the simple villager
Balidan 1927, Naval Gandhi. Based on Rabindranath Tagore8217;s Bisarjan, the story revolves around a king, a queen, a beggar girl and a priest
Anarkali 1928, R S Choudhury. Revisited often, the first celluloid depiction of the romance between a prince and a showgirl
Khooda Ki Shaan 1931, R S Choudhury. A nationalist saga with a Gandhi-like protagonist
Shyam Sunder 1932, Bhal G Pendharkar. The first film in the Marathi language to have a successful silver jubilee run
Sairandhari 1933, Prabhat and V Shantaram. The first colour film made in the country, the costume drama was based on an episode of the Mahabharata
Seeta 1934, Devaki Bose. The first film to portray gods and goddesses as simple human beings without haloes and heavenly powers
Hunterwali 1935, Wadia Brothers. The first film to depict the empowered woman, complete with whip and hot pants