NEW DELHI: Actor Kamal Haasan has emphasised the need for film preservation and restoration. ”Digital cinema was ushered in to preserve what we have and not lose everything. It was supposed to use technology and preserve something that’s historic,” the Tollywood actor said at an event here yesterday.
The actor said, “We need to champion film preservation and restoration, and it requires more trained professionals.” Kamal was talking on the sidelines of the pre-cursor to the annual Film Preservation and Restoration workshop, which will be held in Chennai between October 7 and 14 and is organised by the Film Heritage Foundation and Viacom18.
The workshop has been successfully held in Bombay and Pune in the last two years, and will now be available to film enthusiasts in the South for the first time this year.
Talking about the urgent need to preserve India’s film heritage, Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, founder of FHF, said, ”Of the 1,700 silent films made in India, Madras film industry alone made 124 silent films and 38 documentaries.
None of these survive except the 1931 Malayalam film, Marthanda Varma, and nothing remains of the first Tamil silent film Keechaka Vadham or the first Tamil talkie Kalidasa.” Kamal said, “Preservation is not just about saving something for historic references. It is more than that.
That is why governments spend a lot of money on archaeology. We, as one of the largest filmmaking nations in the world, have done little, but we have a great hero in Shivendraji now, whose passion has driven this whole initiative forward.”
Director Mani Ratnam, who was alos present on the occasion, said that he has lost most of the original prints of his films. He said, “We have been floundering in the dark, unaware of how to preserve our films. I have lost most of my films.
All the films of Balu Mahendra (Tamil filmmaker) are gone. It’s time we start thinking about preserving our work.” This year’s workshop aims to train an indigenous pool of film archivists and restorers as well as to create awareness about the urgent need to save India’s cinematic heritage. (AGENCIES)
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