27 February,2009 11:40 AM IST | | Subroto Roy
Regionalism has hit the premier National Film Archives of India (NFAI), resulting in allegations and counter allegations.
The bitterness between communities has reached its peak with the "Malayali group" accusing the "Marathi group" of bringing down the NFAI. And this is at a time when NFAI's director Vijay H Jadhav confirmed that "degenerated" films were sold as scrap.
The national body's first director P K Nair said, "It is sad to see that the NFAI is in unskilled hands," he said. He alleged that at least a dozen Bengali, Oriya, Assamese, Tamil, Malayalam and other regional and Hindi films were lost due to a "mindless auction" of over 25,000 films reels. "The institution that I had nurtured for 27 years is now quickly degenerating," he told MiD DAY.
The Malyali lobby
But Jadhav said these allegations were being levelled as part of a Malayali lobby's campaign to "bog me down". He said the films were sold to scrap dealers, as they had no real value.
"The metallic covers of the reels, celluloid material, etc, which could be recycled, were the buyers' gain," Jadhav said.
The films, according to Jadhav, had totally degenerated due to a complete neglect by earlier directors. "Last year, I had to waste my time in replying to the queries of former directors A Sashidharan and P K Nair, both Keralites," Jadhav alleged.
Defending the auction, Jadhav said the process had already started much before he joined NFAI. "Now that I have taken the drastic action of removing totally spoilt reels stacked in the Film and Television Institute of India and NFAI, they are making noise," he said.
'Ray's film too'
When MiD DAY asked whether any Marathi films were part of the auction consignment, the Film Preservation Officer Kiran Dhivar said, "It was difficult to make out the titles out of such a large list."
But Nair said he had received the list of the 25,000 discarded films only recently after a long persuasion. "I am shortlisting the names of the films, which have no copies in the country. Satyajit Ray's Mahanagar was among those films auctioned," he said.
Jadhav has, however, said that NFAI possesses a copy of Mahanagar and that NFAI has been hit hard by lack of staff. "NFAI has around 17,000 films, including their copies. Each film comprises 15 reels, which need to be checked every two years," Jadhav said. He added that for this, 40 men needed to be on the job for over 40 years.
