Mumbai: Just like in other fields, technological advancement has brought about a radical change in filmmaking, too, over the years.
Oldtimers, though, haven’t forgotten the era of reels and projectors.
Several reels of films from the pre-digitisation era, including some timeless Hindi classics, were recently prevented from being sold to scrap dealers.
Coming to know that the reels were being sold for silver extraction, the Film Heritage Foundation stepped up to save film reels which included Dev Anand-Waheeda Rehman starrer ‘Baat Ek Raat Ki’, Uttam Kumar-Vyjayanthimala’s ‘Chhoti Si Mulaqat’ and Gulzar’s ‘Maachis’.
After Delhi Times reported the story, filmmaker and director of Film Heritage Foundation Shivendra Singh Dungarpur received calls from across the country about the availability of reels of cult classics.
“When we visited the area in Mumbai, we found mounds of film cans lying in the lanes of the suburbs, waiting to be stripped for silver or thrown in the dustbin. While finding and collecting films is challenging enough, the monumental task is storing them in proper conditions, preserving and restoring them so that they continue to have a life,” Dungarpur told the paper.
“It was shocking to see that some big production houses had discarded not just their films, but also their costumes and props in the scrap heap. We also found documentaries that had been discarded,” Dungarpur revealed.
Among those who have contributed to acquire the reels are filmmakers Nikkhil Advani, Vikramaditya Motwane, Anurag Kashyap, Vasan Bala, Shakun Batra, Atul Sabharwal, Gaurav Chawla, and cinematographer Swapnil Sonawane.
RESCUED FILMS
* Baat Ek Raat Ki (1962) by Shankar Mukherjee
* Gul-e-Bakavali (1963) by Jugal Kishore
* Aanchal Ka Phool (1968) by Karunesh Thakur
* Chhoti Si Mulaqat (1967) by Alo Sarkar
* Anokha (1975) by Jugal Kishore
* Do Khiladi (1976) by Jugal Kishore
* Pehla Kadam (1981) by Kidar Sharma
* Khooni Darinda (1987) by Dhirubhai Daxini
* Maachis (1996) by Gulzar
* Long Da Lashkara (1983) by Harpal Tiwana.
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