Film Heritage Foundation

Film Heritage Foundation is a non-profit organization, based in Mumbai, India, dedicated to film preservation, restoration and archiving of India’s film heritage.

History

The Film Heritage Foundation was founded in 2014 by Shivendra Singh Dungarpur.

Film Heritage Foundation was accepted as an associate member of the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF) by the Executive Committee at the General Assembly held in Sydney in April 2015. The founder director Shivendra Singh Dungarpur has been elected four times as a member of the Executive Committee of FIAF.

Film Heritage Foundation’s activities cover the entire gamut of film preservation including the conservation and archiving of films and film-related memorabilia, film restoration, training and education, film curation, public outreach and advocacy. Amongst the core activities of Film Heritage Foundation is the preservation of celluloid and digital films as well as film-related memorabilia.

The foundation's aim is to preserve both films as well as film-related memorabilia. In 2015, the foundation raised funds for their film preservation and restoration workshop as well as from private businesses and Bollywood actors.

The foundation also runs education and training programmes and regularly holds workshops on film conservation and preservation and restoration around the country. In 2019, the foundation received the memorabilia of the Indian actor Raj Kapoor for preservation. The foundation initiated an oral history project in 2018, in which it interviewed at length, for a permanent historical and cultural record, some of the most eminent film personalities of India, including Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Buddhadeb Dasgupta, Mani Ratnam, Amitabh Bachchan, Soumitra Chatterjee, Goutam Ghose and Aparna Sen. The foundation in the past has been supported by Tata Trusts with a three-year grant in 2017 to provide scholarships for participants at their annual film preservation and restoration workshops.

In 2015, Martin Scorsese’s The Film Foundation lent their support for Film Heritage Foundation’s first film preservation and restoration workshop in Mumbai.

Preservation and archiving

;Film collection
The foundation currently has around 500 titles (approx. 7500 film reels) on 35 mm, 16 mm, Super 8 and 8 mm formats from the earliest days of cinema and from all regions. Besides feature films, the collections include important historical footage dating from the 1930s and ‘40s including footage of the freedom movement and rare home movies of the pre-Independence era that are preserved in a temperature-controlled storage facility and also have films of leading film personalities like Amitabh Bachchan, Shyam Benegal, Mani Ratnam, Vishal Bhardwaj, Kumar Shahani, Farhan and Zoya Akhtar, Govind Nihalani, N.N. Sippy, Buddhadeb Dasgupta, Goutam Ghose, Bhimsain Khurana, Chitra Palekar, Onir, Shaad Ali, Sumitra Bhave and Sunil Sukhthankar.

;Archive of film-related memorabilia
The foundation also archives film-related memorabilia like posters, photographs, scripts, lobby cards, song booklets and artefacts of eminent film personalities.

The foundation has a rapidly expanding archive of film-related memorabilia that includes posters, photographs, scripts, lobby cards, song booklets, cameras, projectors and artefacts of eminent film personalities like A.R. Kardar, Sohrab Modi, Raj Kapoor, Kidar Sharma, Saeed Mirza, Shyam Benegal, G. Aravindan, V.K. Murthy, Sahir Ludhianvi, Sadhana, JBH Wadia, Buddhadeb Dasgupta, Girish Kasaravalli, Film News Anandan, Goutam Ghose, Govind Nihalani, Jamuna J, Kundan Shah, Aruna Raje, Ashim Ahluwalia, Pran and many others from all the regional film industries.

The collection comprises over 30,000 photographs, 10,000 photo negatives, 15,000 posters, 10,000 lobby cards, 15,000 newspaper articles, 5000 lobby cards, 6000 song booklets and numerous 3-D objects.

Oral History Programme

Film Heritage Foundation (FHF) has partnered with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) known for the Oscars, for a pioneering visual history program following international practices of oral history for film heritage in India. The mission is to record, collect and preserve audio and video interviews with the men and women who form the rich fabric of filmmaking history - from designers, documentarians and executives to actors, animators, technicians and composers.

Film Restoration

Kummatty

The FHF collaborated with Martin Scorsese’s The Film Foundation's World Cinema Project and Cineteca di Bologna, to restore celebrated Indian filmmaker Aravindan Govindan’s timeless Malayalam classic film "Kummatty" (1979). One of Japan's top film reviewers and scholars, Tadao Sato, described "Kummatty" as masterpiece and said he had never seen a more beautiful movie in his entire life. Not only is Aravindan a master, but all of his original camera negatives have been lost, leaving only prints that aren't in the best of shape. As a result, his films have been at the top of FHF's list for restoration.

Shivendra Singh Dungarpur travelled to Kollam, Kerala, in February 2020 to see the movie's producer, Mr. K. Ravindranathan Nair of General Pictures, who graciously agreed to grant authorization for the restoration and allow Film Heritage Foundation access to the prints from the National Film Archive of India (NFAI). The prints at the NFAI were examined by an FHF film conservator, who discovered that they weren't in a great condition. Since the prints were the best elements FHF could discover, they were sent to the L'Immagine Ritrovata lab in Bologna.

The lack of an original sound negative and the lab's use of the less-than-ideal sound from the print complicated the restoration process for "Kummatty" in this case. We digitised roughly 15 of Ramu Aravindan's father's quarter-inch recordings with his assistance in the hopes of finding better sources, but there were none. The sound experts at the lab were forced to spend numerous hours cleaning up and remastering the sound as a result.

Thamp̄

The restoration of Aravindan Govindan film Thamp̄ was done by Film Heritage foundation in 2021. It was selected for a world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival 2022.

In addition to Prasad Corporation Pvt. Ltd. and Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna, two of FHF's partners, Martin Scorsese's The Film Foundation's World Cinema Project was given permission to restore the movie by General Pictures producer K. Ravindranathan Nair.

When "Thamp̄" was restored, the film had tears and damaged sprockets, and because the dupe negative was made from a print, it lacked the latitude that an original camera negative would have. At Chennai's Prasad Studios, the sound and picture were scanned, and hours of physical labour went into the image stabilisation and digital repair of tears and scratches. Cinematographer Shaji N. Karun had shot "Thamp̄" in black and white on Indu Stock, an Indian type of film stock made in Ooty. The scanned film needed image stabilisation because the original material was in bad shape and had thick black lines and very blurry images. The outdoor landscapes in the print that FHF worked on were full of high contrast images with very dark blacks and very bright whites and no mid-tones or shadow details.

Ishanou

Film Heritage Foundation restored the 1990 film '' Ishanou''.

The restoration was chosen for a red-carpet global premiere at the Cannes Film Festival's Cannes Classic section in 2023.

‘Ishanou’ was also screened at the Film Restored - The Film Heritage Festival 2023 in Berlin, Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival 2023, Festival des 3 Continents in Nantes and the Singapore International Film Festival 2023.

Film programming and film festivals

Bachchan Back to the Beginning Film Festival

From October 8 to October 11, 2022, 11 Amitabh Bachchan blockbusters screened as part of the "Bachchan Back to the Beginning" festival in 17 Indian cities and 22 theaters, ranging from large cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad to smaller towns like Ahmedabad, Surat, Baroda, Raipur, Kanpur, Kolhapur, Prayagraj, and Indore.

Audiences across the country had the opportunity to see the icon back on the big screen in his landmark films including: Don, Kaala Patthar, Kaalia, Kabhi Kabhie, Amar Akbar Anthony, Namak Halaal, Abhimaan, Deewar, Mili, Satte Pe Satta and Chupke Chupke.

Dilip Kumar - Hero of Heroes Film Festival

On December 10 and December 11, 2022, in honour of Dilip Kumar's birth centennial, Film Heritage Foundation and PVR Cinemas collaborated once more to produce "Dilip Kumar - Hero of Heroes," a festival of 4 iconic movies starring the legendary actor. Aan, Devdas, Ram Aur Shyam, and Shakti.

Zeenat Aman “Rewind to Don”

A special screening of the original “Don" (1978) directed by Chandra Barot was introduced by Zeenat Aman followed by a conversation with FHF Director Shivendra Singh Dungarpur at Regal Cinema, Mumbai on 29 September 2023.

An Indian Autumn at the Festival des 3 Continents in France

Film Heritage Foundation partnered with Festival des 3 Continents

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