Ninety-four-year-old Amala Shankar, wife of late dancer/director Uday Shankar will be walking the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival today for the screening of the new and restored version of Uday Shankar's Kalpana (1948). Behind this spot light on the film is a story of painstaking efforts in procuring and restoring the film.
Like most other classics, the negatives of Kalpana , too, were left neglected. Ad filmmaker Shivendra Singh, who mediated between Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Foundation (WCF) and Uday Shankar's family, says getting the approval of government authorities to send the negatives for restoration was a Herculean task. “WCF, founded by Martin Scorsese, specialises in restoration of old films and works closely with a restoration lab in Bologna, Italy. WCF works on restoration from the money pooled in by film enthusiasts. I learnt that the WCF was looking to restore Kalpana but their efforts to get the negatives turned futile. I had seen the film at a private screening and felt it would do a world of good to have it restored. In India, old films, like old monuments, are given a heritage tag but left to rot,” he says.
Long road to restoration
Shivendra Singh began by approaching Uday Shankar's family. “The film was involved in a legal tangle since Uday Shankar had given the film to his second wife. After a High Court order, I had to convince authorities at National Film Archives of India (NFAI) on why I had to send it to the restoration lab in Bologna. How many of our officials care about Martin Scorsese wanting to restore an Indian film? The tough part was to make them understand that there is no monetary benefit out of this restoration work,” says Shivendra.
After persistent efforts, Shivendra was able to procure the rights and send the negatives to Bologna. “Once the restoration work was carried out, Martin Scorsese had recommended Kalpana for screening at Cannes. It will be a huge recognition when Amala Shankar walks the red carpet,” says Shivendra. Post Cannes, Shivendra hopes it will be possible to re-release the film in India.
As director of Dungarpur films, Shivendra specialises in ad filmmaking. Besides that, he has also made a documentary titled Celluloid Man , on P.K. Nair, the founder of NFAI. “I make money through ad films, and spend it on documentaries like these,” he says.
The restoration lab in Bologna also intends to work on Ritwik Ghatak's Meghe Daka Tara . “I will be contributing towards this and help in raising more funds. Some of Satyajit Ray's films have been restored by the French and the Americans. It's a sorry state of affairs that our country does nothing about our classics,” he says.
