As NFAI does not categorise collection according to genre, it is unable to find more than 5 historical films for fest from collection of over 100
As NFAI does not categorise collection according to genre, it is unable to find more than 5 historical films for fest from collection of over 100
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Despite having the best collection of films in the country, National Film Archive of India (NFAI) officials do not know how to find them within their midst, thanks to the fact that they have not bothered to categorise them according to their genres.u00a0
This is now proving to be a problem for the organisers of Pune International Film Festival (PIFF) since NFAI is finding it difficult to provide them with historical films. PIFF has been using films from NFAI since the beginning.u00a0
There is no system of categorisation in place in NFAI, making it difficult to find films among the thousands of film reels stored.
The ninth PIFF will screen only five historical films sourced from the NFAI out of its total collection of over 100 historical films.
These films are Chhatrapati Shivaji, Veerpandya Kattaboman, Jhansi ki Rani, Sikandar and Jodhaa Akbar. PIFF is organising a round table discussion on the topic of historical films with noted director Ashutosh Govarikar. "We are showcasing historical films on the occasion of the 50th year of the release of Mughal-e-Azam," said Dr Jabbar Patel, Director, PIFF.u00a0u00a0
Vijay Jadhav, former director of NFAI who passed away on December 13, had made plans for categorising the films at NFAI.
The work has stopped after his untimely death. Pankaj Rag, FTII director holding additional charge of NFAI, said, "I will certainly try to start the categorisation work of the films in NFAI though I just have one month tenure left."
Kiran Dhivar, Film Preservation Officer, NFAI said, "We have a large collection of films and also titles since the past 35 years. We have already developed a better system for film preservation at NFAI, Law College Road as well as on Paud Road. But we still have not made any categorisation of films we have with us."
According to Dhivar, NFAI has a total collection of 17,000 films of which 60 per cent of the films are Indian and remaining 40 per cent international. "We need to have 12 categories and then it will be possible to get the exact number in each category," said Dhivar.
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