NEW DELHI : Jewel Thief was almost lost; the reels of the 1967 suspense thriller starring Dev Anand lost the colours. The restoration was seemingly impossible. The original camera negatives of 1970 Bengali drama, Pratidwandi, directed by legendary Satyajit Ray were in possession of the National Film Archive of India (NFAI). It had some scenes missing as emulsion on the reels peeled off.Good news is that a team of experts set up under the National Film Heritage Mission (NFHM) meticulously worked on the available ‘elements’ to bring these films back to life.“Given the damage Jewel Thief was almost unrecoverable. The print was subjected to lots of testing to get the best results because it is very difficult to work with the colour-faded films. The team worked hard to get the original colours when the film was released in 1967,” said an official of National Film Development Corporation of India-National Film Archive of India (NFDC-NFAI) associated with the mission. The recovery of the damaged version of Pratidwandi was also a challenge. The original camera negative of the movie available was not of a “decent quality.” The team had to travel to Kolkata to convince the producer to get hold of the negatives. But the print also had issues: some scenes were missing.“There were frames where emulsion had peeled off and images were gone. The frames also had sub-titles embossed, so they were not usable for restoration. Luckily, we found another print at West Bengal State Film Archive. We took missing portions from that print then completed the film. That’s how it was restored,” said another official.Nearly 2,500 films of different languages have been restored under the mission that was launched in 2022 for the restoration and conservation of rare and old films. A committee identified about 5,100 such films based on the guidelines of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.Of the restored films, some date back to the early 1900sThe list of other classics restored works includes a biopic in Bengali Vidyapati (1937) directed by Debaki Bose, Patala Bhairavi (Telugu/1951), Shyamchi Aai (Marathi/1953), Bees Saal Baad (Hindi/1962), Haqeeqat (Hindi/1964), Anand’s Guide released (Hind/1965) and Chorus (Bengali/1974).Joint secretary (films), I&B ministry, Prithul Kumar, said, “Of the restored films, some date back to the early 1900s. This is one of the largest film restoration projects in the world.”
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