Nagarjuna, Chiranjeevi, S S Rajamouli support the fifth Film Preservation and Restoration Workshop

Telugu cinema bigwigs show keen interest in the workshop, which is currently underway in Hyderabad

Film Preservation and Restoration Workshop 2019 began in Hyderabad with a formal inauguration on Sunday evening that witnessed the presence of several A-listers from Telugu cinema. The fifth in its series of workshops conducted by Film Heritage Foundation (FHF) and the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF) in collaboration with Martin Scorsese’s The Film Foundation (TFF), Adobe Inc, Tata Trust, Viacom 18 and others, the week-long workshop will have participating students learning the technicalities of film and photography restoration and preservation. The workshop is on in the vicinity of Annapurna College of Film & Media.

Filmmaker and the founder-director of FHF, Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, is pleased with the response from the Telugu film industry towards the workshop, and film preservation in the larger scheme of things. He reveals that so far, film negatives of nearly 50 to 55 movies from Akkineni Nageswara Rao’s family members and Prasad Labs are being worked upon for restoration and preservation. “We have conducted the workshop in other cities before. What makes the Hyderabad workshop special is the interest shown by superstars like Akkineni Nagarjuna and Chiranjeevi; both of them came forward to attend a few sessions and understand the art of film restoration,” he says.

All for conservation


   •  Ray Edmondson, founder of National Film and Sound Archive of Australia, who is in Hyderabad for the workshop, is glad that the participation has been enthusiastic, with 77 candidates enrolling for the programme. He observes that cinema is viewed as amusement and entertainment, until one wakes up to its historical and cultural archival value. “A country like India needs many film archives since there are many filmmaking centres,” he says. He adds that when conservation is neglected or its importance is realised a little too late, the loss is significant, “Australia has lost nearly 95% of its silent films.”


   •  Archivist Shivendra Singh Dungarpur collaborated with Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Foundation to restore Uday Shankar’s Kalpana (1948) and to and Sri Lankan filmmaker Lester James Peries’ Nidhanaya (1971). The restored films premièred at the Cannes Film Festival in 2012 and Venice Film Festival 2013 respectively.

Shivendra reveals that Annapurna Studios is eager that all the film negatives of ANR, Nagarjuna and others be restored and preserved. The Foundation has worked on archival photographic material of Ramanaidu Studios and is in talks with other production houses and labs. “This one-week workshop is just the beginning. It’s heartening when people like (producer) Shobu Yarlagadda and director Rajamouli tell us that they want to come and know what happens in the workshop,” says Shivendra.

The applications for those who want to learn the basic or advanced preservation and restoration workshops was announced earlier this year and the chosen candidates are now being taught by the best of international faculty. Some of the faculty members who are in the city for the workshop includes photo conservationist Nora Kennedy representing Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rob Byrne of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, and David Walsh of FIAF, among many others.