A bid to save cinema

It’s time to conserve, save and keep our film heritage intact! The Film Heritage Foundation in association with Viacom18 Media Pvt Ltd is conducting the annual ‘Film Preservation & Restoration Workshop India 2017’ in Chennai from October 7 to 14

We are a country of people that look at history as a linear progression from chaos to order, evolving from bad to good. Maybe that's why we've never really been good at documenting our history. And the same holds true for our cinema.

Some of South India’s greatest films have been lost forever. By 1950 itself, the industry’s 70-80 per cent of cinematic heritage was lost. Only a Malayalam film, ‘Marthanda Varma’ survived with movies such as the first Tamil silent film ‘Keechaka Vadham’ and Kalidas, the first Tamil talkie film being lost.

While the damage done to cinema may be irreparable, it’s not too late for the industry to come together to preserve our cinematic heritage. The Film Heritage Foundation in association with Viacom18 Media Pvt Ltd is holding the annual ‘Film Preservation & Restoration Workshop India 2017’ in Chennai from October 7 to 14. The workshop aims to train an indigenous pool of film archivists and restorers as well as to create awareness about the urgent need to save India’s cinematic heritage.

The list of films lost, is huge and the loss irreparable. Here are some of the Indian movies that you can never watch again:
1. Keechaka Vadham (1918)
‘Keechaka Vadham’ was the first silent film made in South India. Since the cast members were from Tamil Nadu, it was viewed as the first Tamil film. Released in the late 1910s, it became a commercially successful venture and received positive feedback from critics upon its release.
The success of Keechaka Vadham prompted Nataraja Mudaliar to make a series of similar historical films. Mudaliar's works inspired other filmmakers like Raghupathi Surya Prakasa and JC Daniel. However, no print of this landmark movie is known to survive.

2. Alam Ara (1931)
‘Alam Ara’ occupies its position in Indian film history as the first film to have employed sound and possess a diegetic soundtrack, complete with songs. A swashbuckling tale of warring queens, palace intrigue, jealousy and romance, the film was heavily drawn from Parsee theatre. The image and sound were recorded simultaneously in the Tanner single system camera. Since there was no recording studio of any kind in those days, the film often had to be shot behind closed doors and at night to avoid all extraneous sounds. Jyoti Studios, located near the French Bridge in Mumbai overlooking the railway tracks was the studio where ‘Alam Ara’ was shot.
The crew could only shoot at night when the trains did not run, since parts of the studio rattled with the sounds of the passing trains. Microphones were placed around actors to pick up their dialogues in such a way that they were hidden from the camera, while instrumentalists climbed trees or hid behind them to provide invisible musical support. This first ever song was sung in this film by Wazir Mohammed Khan. Sadly this film was lost as it was sold for silver.

3. Kalidas (1931)
Notable for being the first Tamil language sound film, and the first sound film to be made in South India. It was based on the life of the Sanskrit poet Kālidāsa. In addition to its commercial success, ‘Kalidas’ was a major breakthrough for Rajalakshmi's career, and made her a bankable singing star.
Because no print, gramophone record, or songbook of the film is known to survive, it is another one of the gems of yesteryear’s cinema, lost forever.

4. Bhakta Prahlada (1932)
Written by the great playwright and ‘Andhranataka Pitamaha’ Dharmavarapu Ramakrishnacharyulu, ‘Bhakta Prahlada’ is the first Telugu full length talkie film. In addition to reusing some dialogues and poems of the drama, HM Reddy made Chandala Kesavadasu to pen new songs. The great poet Kesavadasu, thus remains in the history of Telugu Cinema to have penned its first song.

5. Sati Sulochana (1934)
This Kannada-language film directed by YV Rao is the first film to be screened in the erstwhile Mysore Kingdom. Being the first Kannada talkie film, it ran house-full at Bangalore for six weeks.

6. Sairandhri (1933)
The first Indian film to have been made in colour, (though not indigenous, since it was processed and printed in Babelsburg, Germany using the Agfacolor process), ‘Sairandhri’ is a remake of Baburao Painter’s silent classic from 1920, of the same name. It is a dramatisation of an episode of the Mahabharat: the act of disrobing of Draupadi in the court of the Kauravas, leading to the humiliation of the Pandavas.

7. Zindagi (Life), (1940)
One of the highest grossing films of the 1940s, Zindagi was a film that not only challenged social mores but also explored the complexities and consequent disillusionment of an unusual platonic relationship between an unmarried couple living together. Not surprisingly, it created quite a stir upon its release. The film contains the evergreen Saigal song “So jaa rajkumari, so jaa”.

8. Mill Mazdoor (1934)
This is the only film written by the acclaimed writer Munshi Premchand in which he also played a cameo. The film courted controversy owing to its story of a prodigal son of a benevolent mill worker, who inherits the mill and proceeds to treat its workers with disdain. This brings him into conflict with his own sister, who is keen to continue their father’s legacy. The scene of the sister inciting the workers to strike against her wayward brother evoked inflammatory responses across the country especially in Bombay, the hub of textile mills, and the film had to be pulled out of the theatres, in many cases through the use of force. Yet it remains a stark, accurate portrayal of industrial life in those times as well as the predicament of workers.

9. Bilet Pherat (1921)
One of the earliest examples of broad, deliberate satire made in the mould of the Hollywood slapstick comedies of the time, ‘Bilet Pherat’ lampoons the trend of Indians travelling abroad (in those days, usually to Britain) for higher education in a slavish, hankering imitation of their colonial masters and returning to their native land only to criticise its customs and traditions, especially those of love and matrimony.