Toronto: With the restored versions of three Indian classics featuring prominently at two major international film festivals within a period of a week, preservation of the country’s film heritage is having a banner year.
While the cinematic epic Sholay premiered at the 50th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), as did legendary director Satyajit Ray’s Aranyer Din Ratri or Days and Nights in the Forests, Bimal Roy’s Do Bigha Zamin was showcased at the Venice film festival.
Sholay played to an audience in Toronto that reminded director Ramesh Sippy of its launch in India 50 years back in 1975. “It was an iconic screening, with so many, so many people,” said Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, director of the Mumbai-based Film Heritage Foundation (FHF), which spent years on the restoration for which much of the original material wasn’t available. But the final version which screened at TIFF actually added to the original release. It was a director’s cut, with deleted scenes and the original ending, which was removed in 1975 due to pressure from the government.
The high-quality digital 4k restoration came about due to collaboration between the Foundation and Sippy Films Pvt Ltd and the venue for the gala premiere was TIFF’s most prestigious theatre, Roy Thomson Hall. Commercial release of the refreshed version is expected later this year in India, and across the world. Dungapur said their effort was not just directed at film festivals but to bring classics to a new generation of audiences, as part of a “movement” to restore the country’s film heritage.
{{/usCountry}}The high-quality digital 4k restoration came about due to collaboration between the Foundation and Sippy Films Pvt Ltd and the venue for the gala premiere was TIFF’s most prestigious theatre, Roy Thomson Hall. Commercial release of the refreshed version is expected later this year in India, and across the world. Dungapur said their effort was not just directed at film festivals but to bring classics to a new generation of audiences, as part of a “movement” to restore the country’s film heritage.
{{/usCountry}}FHF, which was launched in 2014, is selective about the projects it takes on and has completed 15 restorations so far. Among them was the cult Ray classic, which first screened at the Cannes film festival before its encore at TIFF.
The Ray classic was among his lesser known but drew a similar appreciative audience. The Venice premiere of Do Bigha Zamin, made in 1954 and the first Indian film to win the Prix International at the Cannes Film Festival that year, featured several members of the director’s family.
There are several other challenges ahead for the foundation in its mission to presence film heritage as Dungarpur said, “It’s been a long journey and it was ten years now for the Foundation and we feel that there is so much of work to be done. Every day there’s a new chapter, new things.”
The foundation doesn’t just focus on the Hindi film industry will tackles projects across India’s various states, including classics in Manipuri, Bangla, Malayalam, Kannada and Oriya, among others. “We cannot limit ourselves to one region. We are very clear that it has to be through India. We have a very diverse culture and we need to so we try and choose those kind of films<’ Dungarpur said.
Their next “big” project is restoring Kamal Amrohi’s 1972 film Pakeezah. Another Ray classic, Kanchenjunga, made in 1962 and the director’s first colour feature, is also a forthcoming project.restoration work is also being undertaken by the National Film Development Corporation of India which had the digitally-enhanced version of Raj Kapoor’s Awara at TIFF in 2024.