Showing posts with label National Film Archive of India. Show all posts
Showing posts with label National Film Archive of India. Show all posts

National Film Archive of India collects amateur movies to map cultural heritage

6:19 PM

Posted by Fenil Seta

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1954 footage from the inauguration of Deccan Education Society's New English School in Pune features then vice-president Dr S Radhakrishnan; (R) Lord Wavell, then viceroy and governor, greets leaders at 1945 Simla conference

Mohua Das (THE TIMES OF INDIA; November 30, 2021)

A jerky video shows a sari-clad woman in her 50s seated cross-legged on a carpet with a bow-stringed instrument resting on her lap. The camera pans around what looks like a traditional Rajasthani living room before zooming into her left hand moving gracefully along the fret and her right hand bowing a raag. This domestic scene shot on an 8mm handheld camera sometime in the late ’70s is both ordinary and exceptional at once.

The familiar tropes of a classic home movie is what makes it ordinary while a family film captured on an amateur camera is made exceptional by the esraj, an instrument that’s almost obsolete today and its player, a middle-class woman —together, an uncommon combination at the time. This footage of astrophysicist Jayant Narlikar’s mother on a typical day in their Jodhpur home has recently been preserved as an archival artifact at the National Film Archive of India (NFAI) in Pune.

“Any form of moving image is heritage and documents a particular space and time historically. Naturally, Dr Narlikar’s mother, a Sanskrit scholar, playing the ‘esraj’ is interesting because a middle-class woman playing a string instrument that very few people play today is a private moment that can now be safely termed as a social document,” said Prakash Magdum, director NFAI, describing another Narlikar home video where one sees an elephant wandering into their porch in Jodhpur and the family feeding it bananas. “Everything about it was fascinating from a regional perspective.”

Over the past six years, the NFAI has been collecting everyday, ordinary home movies and amateur films—usually considered an irrelevant pastime or nostalgic memento from the past—for preservation as archival objects in order to document stories of cultural or historical relevance.

People’s private movies featuring family activities, a vacation, or a special occasion came to hold interest for an institution that has primarily worked for over five decades on acquiring and preserving the heritage of Indian cinema, in 2014 when Indian physicist Homi Bhabha’s Mumbai house went up for auction.

“A stack of films was discovered in his bathroom shot by Bhabha. We came to know of this when Suresh Chandvankar of TIFR, an avid collector of gramophone records, came to us with one of the spools. It was in a damaged state given Mumbai’s weather conditions and for being locked up for years,” says Magdum who reached out to the various institutions associated with Bhabha hoping to retrieve his other films but in vain.

“That spurred us to look for more such material on a larger scale and NFAI adopted a strategy to welcome all moving image materials in every format. Following our wide outreach through social media and online platforms as well as through personal and professional circles, people started reaching out to us,” said Magdum.

Since then, NFAI has archived a number of home movies shot in 8mm and 16mm, Super 8 cameras, 16mm beta tapes, VHS and MiniDV cassettes.

Describing the value and potential usage of private home movies, Magdum explained they could help draw meaning out of where and why an amateur footage was shot. “It gives us the spatial and temporal characteristics of a specific era and also helps us explore the regional history, informal tours, and events in common people’s lives, as opposed to the visual imagery we see on mainstream media and films.”

This was evident in a precious 12-minute footage that NFAI received from UK-based Margaret South two years ago when South, while cleaning her house, stumbled upon 8mm home videos shot by her father William Taylor, a Royal India naval officer in the ’40s. Taylor while shooting his personal travelogue on a trip to Himachal Pradesh had managed to capture historical moments of the 1945 Simla Conference.

The reel also shows Gandhi walking back after the meeting at the Viceregal Lodge and Lord Wavell, viceroy and governor general of India at the time along with his wife.

Not just the people in the movies but often just small mundane details about a room or the backyard, toys, cars and celebrations contain unique documentation of a way of life.

Raaj Kumar, Shammi Kapoor, Saira Banu’s personal letters to fan go viral; NFAI shows interest to acquire them

8:24 AM

Posted by Fenil Seta

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Rishabh Deb (CHENNAI TIMES; March 3, 2021)

A Twitter thread by user SamSays on February 25 got everyone nostalgic about older days of Bollywood.

The precious thread gave a glimpse of how Sam’s aunt, an avid film buff — Mehrunnisa Najma, who passed away in 2006, received responses to her letters from some of the popular Bollywood stars including Shammi Kapoor, Dharmendra, Sunil Dutt, Saira Banu, Tabassum and many more.

These letters that were locked in the basement for more than 15 years, wearing dust, will now breathe a new lease of life as the National Film Archive of India (NFAI) will acquire and preserve this collection for Bollywood buffs.

PRESERVATION OF A PERSONAL HISTORY
Soon after the tweets went viral, NFAI reached out to Sam seeking approval to acquire and preserve this unique collection.

Prakash Magdum, director, National Film Archive of India, told us, “We are always looking for filmy materials that are of archival value. What we saw on Twitter is a fantastic collection because this also constitutes part of cinema history. It is so interesting that a lady was writing to these stars and they were replying to her. It that the stars in those years, had a personal connect with their fans. And these were times when there was no social media. Our aim is to acquire rights, preserving them and making them accessible to cinema lovers and history buffs.”


‘I THINK WE NEED TO PAY MORE ATTENTION TO MEMORABILIA LEFT BEHIND’
Speaking with us, Sam Javed, who shared her aunt’s tweets says, “Everyone knew of my aunt’s collection, but somehow no one ever gave it much attention or importance. She used to show it to us when we were kids, and over the years, it was forgotten. It was rediscovered recently during a clean-up and I decided to share it on Twitter. I had absolutely no idea that it will get such an overwhelming response. I think we need to pay more attention to memorabilia left behind to us and do our best to treasure it in the same way, that the person who left it behind did in his/her lifetime.”


‘HAPPY TO SEE THE LETTERS BEING RESTORED AND PRESERVED’
Happy to have received such an overwhelming response to the tweets, Sam is now looking forward to have these letters restored and preserved by NFAI.

“NFAI was one of the first to do so, and it gives me immense happiness to see the collection get such recognition. My priority is to restore and preserve the images so that they can be enjoyed by generations to come. My Twitter thread has got me responses from cinema lovers around the world. I feel blessed that I’m able to share my aunt’s legacy with the world. These pictures and letters take us back to a completely different era. They give us a glimpse of a gentler world. The kindness of superstars for sparing the time to write a handwritten note to a young woman is something very hard to imagine today. The message to today’s generation is to slow down, value the simple pleasures in life and spread love and happiness.”

WHO WAS MEHRUNNISA NAJMA?
Najma was born in the 1930s. Her father was from Punjab and her mother was from Burma (Myanmar). She had two sisters and a brother. The father died in infancy. She and her entire family lived with their uncle. Her aunt was the wife of the then Nawab of Tonk Saadat Ali Khan. Najma was brought up by her Burmese mother in the palace of the Nawab of Tonk.

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