Pune: The National Film Archive of India (NFAI) has acquired 162 films in one of its largest acquisitions in recent times.
As many as 125 of these films are original ‘dupe’ negatives as opposed to release positives, NFAI director Prakash Magdum said.
The collection includes 44 black-and-white films. It includes a number of Hindi films from different eras, and 34 Gujarati, 15 Marathi and some Nepali and Bhojpuri films. The haul also includes 15 unreleased films. A highlight is the original negative of Mahatma , nearly six hours of documentary footage of Mahatma Gandhi shot by Vitthalbhai Jhaveri, a photographer, filmmaker, and an associate of Gandhi.
Hindi films like Faslah (1976) and Amarsingh Rathod (1957); Nepali film Maiti Ghar (1966) by B.S.Thapa; and original negatives of Sitara (1939) by Ezra Mir, Mani Kaul’s Uski Roti (1969) and K.A. Abbas’s Saat Hindustani (1969), Amitabh Bachchan’s debut film, are also a part of the acquisition.
The collection also includes Kon Ichikawa’s renowned film Tokyo Olympiad (1965) and Dilip Kumar-starrer Kohinoor (1960).
“The entire collection is the courtesy of the Famous Cine Laboratory in Mumbai and we thank them for depositing these films with the NFAI. This is one of the most important acquisitions owing to the fact that a large number of films have come in the original/dupe negative format,” Mr. Magdum said.