Four days after Shivendra Dungarpur, founder of the Film Heritage Foundation, tweeted about Shyam Benegal donating some of his work to the archives, the former’s office is lined with over 20 cartons of material as they deliberate on the impending process of preservation.

Dungarpur informs that Benegal is on the advisory board of his organisation and has been an eminent supporter since its inception in 2014. “We have set up a ‘Shyam Benegal archive’, under which we have some of his scripts, including The Making Of The Mahatma, Samvidhaan and Bose: The Forgotten Hero, among others. We also have stills, books on films, photographs and original posters of a few of his films including Zubeidaa, Antarnaad, Ankur, Mandi and Bhumika. He has also made several ad films, documentaries and two televisions shows – Bharat Ek Khoj and Yatra – and we are in possession of their original camera negatives, film clap boards, call sheets and film-related letters,” informs Dungarpur.

Benegal is confident of his decision. “Shivendra is extremely serious about what he is doing and has got a wonderful museum. I have been working for close to 58-59 years. It’s a long period to have accumulated a great deal of material and one has to let people make the right use of it. Quite a few original negatives of the films that I have made have been given to the National Film Archive and what I had in my office has been given to Shivendra,” the filmmaker tells Mirror.

Dungarpur, who counts Bhumika, Ankur and Manthan among his favourite Benegal films, says that his biggest challenge is to save the original camera negative of Susman. “It’s in a very poor condition; it reeks of vinegar and we have to start work on it soon. The challenge is to collect more material and to make sure that it is accessible to public as well. We will take six months to figure out the entire material donated by Shyamji,” he says. Dungarpur has previously acquired film material of other directors like Mani Ratnam, Kundan Shah, Saeed Mirza, Govind Nihalani, JBH Wadia and films produced by Amitabh Bachchan. “We have also conducted three workshops on film preservation and restoration to bring in more people who are equipped to look after this archive.”

When asked if he’d like to have one of his films restored, Benegal says, “Only if other people are interested in doing it, which is why I gave them away. There used to be a vault in Mahim where master negatives were kept for years and years. The people running it went out of business and didn’t inform anyone before the air conditioning was taken out. Finally we had to go running to look for our negatives,” the veteran filmmaker reflects on the current state of film preservation in India. Dungarpur, however, argues that restoration is an expensive process. “We don’t have as much funds right now so we will first start preserving them,” he signs off.