Viacom18 and Film Heritage Foundation bring the 5th Film Preservation & Restoration Workshop to Hyderabad

With sustained efforts to preserve India’s cinematic heritage, the 5th edition of the Film Preservation & Restoration Workshop India (FPRWI) 2019 was inaugurated today at Hyderabad’s State Gallery of Art. Supported by Viacom18, this initiative of Film Heritage Foundation (FHF) and International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF) in collaboration with Annapurna Studios is being held from 8th to 15th December, 2019 in Hyderabad.

Dr. Nora Kennedy, Sherman Fairchild Conservator in Charge of the Department of Photograph Conservation, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York was conferred with the Film Heritage Foundation Outstanding Achievement Award and Dr. Ray Edmondson, founder of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia was given the Lifetime Achievement Award during the ceremony.

Commenting on bringing the workshop to Hyderabad this year, Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, Founder & Director, Film Heritage Foundation, said, “Over the last four years, we’ve been the Pied Pipers of film heritage drawing over 200 conservators, librarians, film scholars, academics, cinematographers, editors, colourists and technicians into our fold, eager to learn to save remarkable film patrimonies from our part of the world and showcase the richness and diversity of a heritage that has been lying dormant and forgotten for decades. And this number will cross the 270 mark this year. We are now ready to consolidate and build the country’s first world-class Centre of the Moving Image, an institution devoted to the art of film and we hope that we can count on the support of the film industry, the government and the public to make our vision a reality.”

Speaking on the association with this initiative, Sudhanshu Vats, Group CEO and MD, Viacom18, said, “India is a country of storytellers and the oldest stories in the world originate from here. Over the years, our cinema has portrayed the culture and heritage of India. At Viacom18, we realise the importance of preserving these stories that form a part of the Indian culture for the benefit of our future generations. As India’s foremost storytellers, we connect deeply with this ethos and our support to Film Heritage Foundation is a conflux of this shared sentiment. The Film Preservation & Restoration Workshop is a step in that direction and we at Viacom18 are proud to be associated with this initiative.”

Guest of Honour, Shri Shyam Benegal, said, “I grew up in Trimulgherry, a suburb of Secunderabad, which had a sizeable military presence of both Indian and British army units before India became Independent. There were three cinemas in the cantonment area. Of the three, the Garrison Cinema was in our neighbourhood. Shows on weekdays consisted of Indian language films – Hindi, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam. Weekend screenings were reserved for English language Hollywood films. The result was that I saw practically every film shown at the Garrison Cinema during my growing up years. It is obvious that my ambition to become a filmmaker germinated during that time. Films are an integral part of our lives and archiving films is a way of preserving our visual history, our heritage and our memories. This is why Film Heritage Foundation’s commitment to training film archivists is important not only to preserve Indian cinema, but also the audio-visual history of our country for posterity.”

Shri Chiranjeevi, who also graced the occasion as the guest of honour, added, “Film Heritage Foundation is not just saving physical reels of film, but also our life’s work as well as the memories of the thousands of people who saw and loved our films and the films that the giants of our previous generations have produced. The Foundation’s work will ensure that future generations can watch and appreciate our films and remember us and the craze for films that we saw in our time.”

Shri Nagarjuna Akkineni, one of the most revered actors of the Telegu Film Industry said, “Here at Annapurna Studios we have created a museum just for the countless awards my father won in his lifetime. When you look back on the incredible films he made – “Laila Majnu”, “Devadasu”, “Missamma”, “Mayabazar”, “Batasari”, “Premabhishekham” it is a magnificent body of work that we must keep alive for future generations to appreciate the work of a truly legendary actor of Indian cinema.”

Commenting on the inauguration, eminent film director and screenwriter, Shri S.S. Rajamouli, said, “I was very impressed to hear that Film Heritage Foundation has taken up the challenge to preserve every element that makes up the fabric of our cinematic heritage from reels of film to cameras, posters, lobby cards, scripts etc. They have also developed a superb training program in film preservation and have been conducting these workshops around the country over the last few years to develop a local resource of future film archivists. But they cannot do this alone. The film industry, the government and the public must come forward to support this noble cause in any way that we can to save our films for posterity. “

Veteran actress

Jamuna J who was also present at the Opening Ceremony said, “I have acted in close to 200 films in my career not just in Telugu, but in Kannada, Tamil and Hindi. I have received innumerable awards for my work that line the walls of my home and I have photo albums and newspaper articles that capture the richness of my life in cinema, but I don’t know what will happen to all this that I have painstakingly collected over the years to record my life on the silver screen. It upsets me to see the poor quality versions of my films that are available today. I think the Telugu film industry has been very neglectful of their heritage. I have been interacting with Film Heritage Foundation and I am glad that they thought of bringing their film preservation workshop to Hyderabad, the heart of the Telugu film industry. I hope that this workshop will be a wake-up call to the industry that we need to preserve our films.”

The 5th edition, for the first time will welcome 12 film archivists and film technicians from the Presidential Palace ARG Archive and the Afghan Film Organization including Dr. Sahraa Karimi, Director General of the Afghan Film Organization, who were responsible for saving their films from destruction under the Taliban regime. Practical sessions in chemical treatment of film in serious condition will also be introduced in FPRWI 2019. Additionally, practical sessions with the latest and world class ARRISCAN XT will give participants hands-on training on scanning archival film.

Previous editions of the workshop have been conducted in Mumbai in 2015, Pune in 2016, Chennai in 2017 and Kolkata in 2018.

We got this information in a press release.