National Film Heritage Mission giving new lifeline to Indian cinema: Anurag Singh Thakur

Thakur said the NFHM, under the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC), is giving a new lifeline to the heritage of Indian cinema and making films available to audiences worldwide in the best quality and ensuring the long-term preservation of Indian cinema for the next 100 years and more.

“National Film Heritage Mission (NFHM) is moving ahead at full steam at NFDC-National Film Archive of India (NFAI), Pune. As part of NFHM, three major projects are ongoing at NFDC-NFAI: Digitisation of films, conservation of film reels and restoration of films. All these projects are colossal in film preservation and have never been attempted on this scale globally,” stated a press release.

“Currently, 1293 features and 1062 shorts & documentaries have been digitised in 4K and 2K resolution. Additional 2,500 features and shorts and documentaries are in the pipeline to be digitised. Meanwhile, conservation works on 1433 celluloid reels have been completed. This has been done painstakingly with utmost care, in collaboration with the international agency L’immagine Ritrovata, the world’s foremost expert in film conservation,” it added.

The minister took a tour of the newly set up film conservation lab at the premises of NFDC-NFAI, where the conservation works on celluloid reels are taking place. Hundreds of more films will be conserved in the coming months, and in quite a few cases, these reels might be the only surviving copies of certain rare Indian films. NFDC-NFAI recently also commenced the restoration project, as 21 films are undergoing digital restoration. In the next three years, numerous features, short films and documentaries will be digitally restored, the release added.