• India has embarked on the world’s largest film restoration project under which 2,200 films of different languages will be restored at a cost of Rs 363 crore, I&B Minister Anurag Thakur said.

• The restoration project now awarded is set to commence in full swing at National Film Archive of India (NFAI).

• The films for restoration have been shortlisted by language wise committees consisting of filmmakers, film historians, producers such as Aparna Sen, Shriram Raghavan, Anjali Menon and Vetrimaaran.  

• In the interim, the NFAI undertook restoration of 10 prestigious Satyajit Ray films which will be showcased at various International Film Festivals. 

• The remastered version of Ray classic ‘Pratidwandi’ has been selected by Cannes to premiere in the Cannes Classics Section later this month.

• The restored version of G. Aravindan’s 1978 Malayalam film ‘Thamp’ will be showcased at Restoration World Premieres in Cannes by Film Heritage foundation.

• Besides Satyajit Ray’s films, feature films as diverse as ‘Neelakuyil’ (Malayalam) and ‘Do Aankhen Barah Haath’ (Hindi) will also be restored.

National Film Heritage Mission

• National Film Heritage Mission (NFHM), a Rs 597.41 crore project, was approved by the I&B ministry in 2014 for restoring and preserving the film heritage of India. 

• It is one of the world’s largest film preservation missions.

• This scheme has taken care of digitisation/restoration of films available with NFAI as well as other media units under the film wing of the ministry.

• Implementation of the plan scheme is given to National Film Archive of India, Pune.

Objectives of NFHM:

i) To undertake film condition assessment of the film collection and to ascertain the left over life of the film.

ii) Preventive conservation of 1,32,000 film reels.

iii) 2K/4K picture and sound restoration of 1,086 landmark feature films and 1,152 short films and recording of new picture and sound inter-negatives of each film.

iv) Digitisation of 1,160 feature films and 1,660 short films.

v) Construction of archival and preservation facilities for preservation of material restored under NFHM in dust free, low humidity, and low temperature conditions at NFAI campus, Pune.

vi) Training workshops and courses in field of conservation, preservation and archiving in coordination with international agencies that are experts in this field.

Film restoration process

• The restoration process involves frame-to-frame digital and semi-automated manual picture and sound restoration from the best surviving source material. 

• The source negative/print will be scanned at 4K to .dpx files, which will be then digitally restored. 

• The damages including scratches, dirt and abrasions in every frame of the picture negative will be cleaned during the restoration process. 

• The sound is also restored in a process similar to the picture restoration procedure and involves digital removal of numerous pops, hisses, crackles and distortions on the sound negative.

• After restoration, the digital picture files will be colour graded (DI process) and balanced to achieve the look of the film at the time of the original release.

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