A film festival is not just about mindlessly celebrating the most current, fashionable and the contemporary. It is also a time to remember and reflect; it is an occasion to take stock of the art, to pay homage and to look back upon the works of the past from the present. While retrospectives bring together the works of a particular filmmaker and foregrounds the continuities and transformations in his/her oeuvre, other thematic packages pick and choose films to create contexts and open new engagements with history and also trigger new conversations with the present
One major attraction of IFFK 2017 will be the package of films that have been restored from technical damage through digital technology and given a new lease of life.
Varied perspectives
Significantly this package includes films from various continents and hence, is a wake-up call to realise the value of cinema as a part of human cultural heritage and a plea to take up the task of recovering and restoring whatever is left of its rich legacy.
This package should also be an occasion for self-reflection. For instance, what is the state of film archiving and documentation in India? Though we boast of our rich and varied film culture, and pride ourselves as one of the most prolific and vibrant of filmmaking countries in the world, and as an industry that has stood up to the challenge of Hollywood, have we paid enough care and attention to preserving it?
One striking instance would be enough to indicate the depths of our indifference to this art: out of the thousands of feature length films made in South India during the silent era, the print of only one film survives: that of Marthandavarma (1933), directed by V.V. Rao. That too, for all the wrong reasons, for it was confiscated after its initial screening by the publishers for violating copyrights!
And it survives due to the efforts of a stalwart like P.K. Nair, who did sterling service to preserve whatever we now have of Indian film heritage.
Although Kerala boasts high literacy rates and progressive political awareness, our concern for film heritage has been abysmal to say the least. Leave alone the black and white era, even the negatives or quality prints of celebrated classics of the 1970s and 1980s have not been preserved.
For instance, the negatives of most of the films of Aravindan, Piravi by Shaji N. Karun, Athithi by K.P. Kumaran, Aswathamavu by K.R. Mohanan, Nagarame Nanni by A. Vincent, Iniyum Marichittillatha Nammal by Raveendran and so on have not been preserved.
Visual culture
Only those films that were bought by television channels survive in their new formats, though their celluloid versions are beyond repair and recovery. When we lose these films in their original form and formats, what we irretrievably lose is a vital part of our visual culture and heritage. The lack of care and attention for film heritage is all the more tragic and despairing when one takes into account the fact that the effort, resources and technology needed to do the same are much less in our digital era.
Now, if at all old films are preserved, it is thanks to social media forums like YouTube where cineastes upload films of their liking and thus share it with like-minded people all over the world, and thus preserve it in some way or other.
Let us hope packages like this will trigger our interest and commitment to cherish and preserve our film heritage, which includes not only films, but all the bit and pieces, shreds and memorabilia related to it.
The author is a well-known film critic
On screen, again:
‘The Restored Classics’ package includes five films
Memories of Underdevelopment (1968), a Cuban film, which is one of the landmarks of Third World Cinema
The Colour of Pomegranates (1979) by legendary filmmaker Sergei Parajanov
A Fistful of Dollars (1964), the Hollywood classic by Sergio Leone
Iranian film Downpour (1972) by Bahram Beyzai
Mauritian film Oh Sun (1970) by Med Hondo