BENGALURU: Around 1,700 silent films were made before talkie films emerged in the Indian cinema world. But unfortunately, only five to six such silent films have been preserved and restored. Among South Indian language silent films, none have survived, except the Malayalam film Marthanda Varma.
Not just the silent movies, even old talkie movies, including the first Indian film ‘Alam Ara’, have not been preserved properly. In such a scenario, preserving and restoring Indian films should be taken up on a war footing, said Shivendra Singh Dungarpur from the Film Heritage Foundation.
He was speaking at a seminar on “Preserving and Restoring Karnataka’s Film Heritage”, organised by the Karnataka Chalanachitra Academy (KCA).
KCA chairman and well-known film director Rajendra Singh Babu said, “The state government had allotted Rs 2 crore for preserving Kannada movies. But the funds got elapsed. The government, however, has assured us of its complete support for the cause. It is the prime duty of filmmakers to preserve their films. Recently, I constituted a committee comprising experts on preservation and I have sought for a report, which will be submitted to the government to preserve films on celluloid.”
Karnataka Film Chamber of Commerce president Sa Ra Govindu said that guidelines and criteria have to be put in place to decide what kind of films need to be preserved, as thousands of movies have been made till now. Now, at least 200 Kannada films are released every year, he said.
Making a presentation on why films need to be preserved and restored, Mr Dungarpur said that the change in attitude towards films also needs to be looked at. “As long as films are not treated as art, it becomes a task. Films represent the culture, heritage, lifestyle and much more, which is why Manny Farber rightly points out, ‘Every movie transmits the DNA of its time’, and let us save our cinema before it's too late,” he said.
“There is a huge misconception that mere digitalisation of films will save films. In fact, the lifespan of CD/DVD is just 3-5 years, and whereas hard disk has six years and LTO could last up to 30 years, and magnetic ones a little more than 30 years. But it is the celluloid films, a tried and tested ones, which could last up to 126 years. Every state should have an archive lab,” he said.
Well-known director Girish Kasaravalli also spoke on the occasion.
