Winds From The East

You said in a press conference that out of the 43000 feature films that have been made in this country since the dawn of cinema, only 5000 have been preserved. What do you believe justifies this callous attitude towards our film heritage? The tendency to preserve is not inherent in our culture. There is a clear lack of initiative in the field of archiving. There is also a lack of a proper series of steps being taken by the established authorities to educate the young generation of film lovers, or even the current members of the film fraternity. Do you believe that this lackadaisical attitude also stems from a disinterest from a commercial standpoint in the preservation and later, exhibition, of these films? I believe that these films, once released, will definitely find a commercial audience. There is an also a sustained effort from our side (NFAI) to upgrade these films to more updated formats – for instance, the present edition of IFFI features an exhibition of 5 obscure Indian films...

International Film & Television Club (IFTC) is organizing the 3 rd Global Film Festival; Noida from 12 to 14 th November, 2010 at Marwah Studios, Film City, Noida. The film festival will be focusing on the theme of children this year by bringing in films from diverse country such as Iran, France, America, Spain and U.K. The opening film of festival will be a Japanese Anime film, Nitobeh and the closing will be a Spanish Masterpiece Spirit of the beehive. The festival is also organizing seminars and workshops that will be held throughout the 3 days. The prominent topics to be explored in seminars are Commercial Viability of Children Films (Headed by renowned director Mr. Sudhir Mishra), Are animation films for children only (by Mr. Kundan Shah) and How to make children films available in Multiplexes (By Ms. Sai Paranjpye). The workshops will be held on Delhi : A venue for shooting films, Cinema and social Responsibility and Children Films not a child’s play to be taken ...