Films, part of cultural heritage, needed to be preserved: Shivendra Singh

Hyderabad : Indian Films are very much part of our national heritage and culture, which needed to be preserved. National award winning film maker Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, who is also an Film Archivist and the founder of Film Heritage Foundation, expressed these views today at Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU), Hyderabad while delivering a lecture "India's Film Heritage: Rich, Diverse, Endangered".

Instructional Media Centre (IMC) organized it as Enrichment Lecture under MANUU Knowledge Series. Dr. Mohammad Aslam Parvaiz, Vice-Chancellor presided over.

Dungarpur an ardent lover of Urdu language had assisted legendary film maker Gulzar during the making of films "Lekin" and "Libas" & Teleserial "Ghalib". He expressed dismay over the fact that films in India is still fighting, for acceptance as a form of art. In fact, films are an extension of art form, he remarked.

Do films need to be preserved? He asked the audience consisting of MANUU & other University Students. Driving his argument with the help of power point effectively, he referred to Tagore and described the moving image as one of the greatest invention of 20th Century. However, in India we are yet to realize it and give cinema its due importance. That's the reason films are completely absent from our Universities & Museums.

Dungarpur in his absorbing presentation referred to the data and said that due to this negligence, we have lost almost 99% of silent era films and by 1950, 80% of own film heritage was lost including the first talkie "Alam Ara", filmed in 1930. He also narrated recent incidents to show that the reels of films as recent as "Qayamat se Qayamat tak" and "Machis" were not available to their producers.

Talking about the changing technology being used in films, he says that cinema is all about innovation. However, being a Archivist, he preferred celluloid over the digital format, since it can be preserved for a longer period of time.

He also spoke about the aims & objectives of his film heritage foundation, engaged in restoration of old and endangered films. Beauty of original creation has to be retained, he stressed. His foundation conducts restoration workshops and till date has trained 200 individuals. Dungarpur plans to create a world class film archive & research centre. He also paid rich tributes to P. K.Nair the first Archivist of Indian Cinema. Later his award winning film on Mr. Nair "Celluloid man" was also screened.

Dr. Aslam Parvaiz in his presidential remarks described cinema as a symbol of our moving culture. Cinema is part of our cultural heritage, he agreed and expressed confidence that Urdu will again make a comeback in Indian Films.

Earlier, Rizwan Ahamd, Director, IMC, welcomed the guests and spoke about the importance of the MANUU Knowledge series and enrichment lectures.

Imtiaz Ahmed, Research Officer conducted the proceedings. Omer Azmi, Producer, introduced the guest and Aamir Badr, Producer, IMC proposed vote of thanks.