Farce after tragedy at FTII

FTII and NFAI officials today maintained that the loss of original film prints in yesterday’s fire was ‘‘inconsequential&#146...

FTII and NFAI officials today maintained that the loss of original film prints in yesterday’s fire was ‘‘inconsequential’’.

FTII director P.K. Matiani and NFAI head K.S. Shashidharan said 95 per cent of the nitrate and pre-1951 era prints destroyed had been copied and transferred. ‘‘The five per cent lost were foreign films and pieces with no specific details. There was no Ritwik Ghatak, Fellini or Kurosawa,” Matiani said.

The FTII director and Shashidharan, however, admitted that the I&B Ministry was ‘‘concerned’’. The day was spent answering calls and faxing messages to its officials.

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Shashidharan said there were 4,000 reels (250 films) in the vault. The prints destroyed include Bombay Talkies and Prabhat Studios classics, and the first Indian talkie, Raja Harishchandra.

Technical reasons were cited for the delay in transfer despite the new vault being ‘‘almost ready’’. Matiani said it would be hypothetical to say the loss could have been averted had the films been transferred on time. He argued that the new vault being ready showed the authorities were sensitive to the issue.

The construction of the vault started in 1998. Superintendent engineer A.P. Diwakaran said it should have got functional in 2001. It was earlier decided to have a central air cooling system but AC units called for later had to be imported from Germany. ‘‘The delay was more technical than intentional,’’ he said.

Executive engineer A. De said staff visited the vault an hour before the fire and found things “normal”.

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