The National Film Archive of India (NFAI) was established as a media unit of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in February 1964. It is was a member of the

International Federation of Film Archives The International Federation of Film Archives (french: Fédération internationale des archives du film, FIAF) was founded in Paris in 1938 by the Cinémathèque Française, the Reichsfilmarchiv in Berlin, the British Film Institute and the Museum ...

. In March 2022, it was merged with National Film Development Corporation.

Objectives

Its three principal objectives are: to trace, acquire and preserve for posterity the heritage of Indian cinema; to classify, document data and undertake research relating to films; to act as a centre for the dissemination of film culture.

Organization

With headquarters at

Pune Pune (; ; also known as Poona, (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million ...

Maharashtra Maharashtra (; , abbr. MH or Maha) is a states and union territories of India, state in the western India, western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. Maharashtra is the List of states and union te ...

, NFAI had three regional offices at

Bangalore Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

and

Thiruvananthapuram Thiruvananthapuram (; ), also known by its former name Trivandrum (), is the capital of the Indian state of Kerala. It is the most populous city in Kerala with a population of 957,730 as of 2011. The encompassing urban agglomeration populati ...

. Developed from scratch by

P. K. Nair Paramesh Krishnan Nair (6 April 1933 – 4 March 2016) was an Indian film archivist and film scholar, who was the founder and director of the National Film Archive of India (NFAI) in 1964. He is regarded as the Henri Langlois of India because o ...

, NFAI's activities related to the dissemination of film culture were manifold. Its Distribution Library had about 25 active members throughout the country and it also organized joint screening programmes on a weekly, fortnightly and monthly basis in six important centres. It had over 10,000 films, over 10,000 books, over 10,000 film scripts, and over 50,000 photographs. Another important programme was the film teaching scheme comprising long and short-term Film Appreciation courses conducted in collaboration with the

Film and Television Institute of India The Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) is a film institute under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting of the Government of India and aided by the Central Government of India. It is situated on the premises of the erstwhile ...

(FTII) and other educational and cultural institutions. At the International level, NFAI supplied several Indian classics for major screening programmes. The NFAI's archive kept a stock of films, video cassettes, DVDs, books, posters, stills, press clippings, slides, audio CDs, and disc records of Indian cinema dating back to the 1910s.

State of preservation

On 8 January 2003, a large fire caused a massive destruction in the vault of NFAI housed in the Prabhat Studio complex of

, in which unduplicated irreplaceable films with a nitrate base were destroyed.

Ravi Shankar Prasad Ravi Shankar Prasad (born 30 August 1954) is an Indian politician and lawyer, from the Bharatiya Janata Party. A Member of Parliament since 2000, first in the Rajya Sabha (2000-2019) and then in the Lok Sabha (since 2019), Prasad has served as Un ...

the then Minister of State, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India announced in the

Rajya Sabha The Rajya Sabha, constitutionally the Council of States, is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of India. , it has a maximum membership of 245, of which 233 are elected by the legislatures of the states and union territories using si ...

that 607 films in 5,097 reels were lost in the fire. Among the greatest loss were films by

Dadasaheb Phalke Dhundiraj Govind Phalke (Pronunciation: Help:IPA/Marathi, ̪ʱuɳɖiɾaːd͡ʒ pʰaːɭke, popularly known as Dadasaheb Phalke () (30 April 1870 – 16 February 1944), was an Indian producer-director-screenwriter, known as "the Father of In ...

including: ''

Raja Harishchandra ''Raja Harishchandra'' () is a 1913 Indian silent film directed and produced by Dadasaheb Phalke. It is often considered the first full-length Indian feature film. ''Raja Harishchandra'' features Dattatraya Damodar Dabke, Anna Salunke, Bhalc ...

'' (1913), ''

Lanka Dahan ''Lanka Dahan'' ( en, Lanka Aflame) is a 1917 Indian silent film directed by Dadasaheb Phalke. Phalke also wrote the film based on an episode of the Hindu epic ''Ramayana'', credited to Valmiki. The film was Phalke's second feature film after t ...

'' (1917) and '' Kaliya Mardan'' (1919). Important films produced by

Prabhat Film Company Prabhat Film Company (popularly known as Prabhat Films) was an Indian film production company and film studios founded in 1929 by the noted film director V.Shantaram and his friends. It was formed in Kolhapur, Maharashtra, India in 1929, towar ...

Wadia Movietone Wadia Movietone was a noted Indian film production company and studio based in Mumbai, established in 1933 by Wadia brothers J. B. H. Wadia and Homi Wadia. It was most known for stunt, fantasy and mythological films, including ''Hunterwali'' (1 ...

Bombay Talkies Bombay Talkies was a movie studio founded in 1934. During its period of operation, Bombay Talkies produced 40 movies in Malad, a suburb of the Indian city of Bombay. The studio was established in 1934 by Himanshu Rai and Devika Rani. After Ra ...

and

New Theatres New Theatres is an Indian film studio. It was formed in Calcutta by producer B. N. Sircar (Birendranath Sircar, the recipient of Dadasaheb Phalke Award of 1970). It was formed on 10 February 1931. Motto of this company was– ''Jivatang Jyotire ...

, were also gutted, namely: '' Bhakta Prahlada'' (1932), ''

Amar Jyoti ''Amar Jyoti'' (Eternal Flame) is a List of Bollywood films of 1936, 1936 Hindi social, action adventure, drama film directed by V. Shantaram. Produced by Prabhat Film Company and cited as a "noteworthy" film along with Shantaram's earlier ''Am ...

'' (1936), ''

Manoos ''Manoos'', also called ''Life's for Living'', is a 1939 Indian Marathi social melodrama film directed by V. Shantaram. The movie was simultaneously made in Hindi as ''Aadmi''. The film was based on a short story called "The Police Constable ...

'' (1939), ''

Aage Badho Aage Badho () is a 1947 Hindi language movie directed by Yeshwant Pithkar, starring Dev Anand, Khurshid, Vasant Thengdi, Kusum Deshpande, and Madhukar Apte. Cast *Dev Anand *Khurshid *Kamala Kotnis *Vasant Thengdi *Kusum Deshpande *Madhukar Apt ...

'' (1947) and others. In March 2019, the

Comptroller and Auditor General of India The Comptroller and Auditor General of India is the supreme audit institution of India, established under Article 148 of the Constitution of India. They are empowered to audit all receipts and expenditure of the Government of India and the ...

reported that 31,000 reels at the NFAI were reported lost or destroyed, when it audited the records between May 1, 2015, and September 30, 2017.

References

External links

National Film Archive of India Official WebsiteNational Film Archive of India YouTube Channel
1964 establishments in Maharashtra Government agencies established in 1964 Film archives in India Archives in India Film organisations in India Film preservation Organisations based in Pune Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (India) {{India-museum-stub