Alam Ara, the first Indian sound film, is lost.
By Tathagata Mitra
BANGALORE: One of Bollywood’s biggest losses took place, perhaps, when it lost all known prints of Alam Ara.
Alam Ara, the first Bollywood and the first Indian talkie, is a big part of the heritage of this country’s cinema. It has been lost since as far back as 1967, as per the National Film Archive of India, Pune.
To avoid the loss of classics such as Alam Ara, filmmaker and archivist Shivendra Singh Dungarpur is setting up the Film Heritage Foundation.
Many of the prominent veterans of Indian cinema are to be a part of the Film Heritage Foundation and directly responsible for the protection of these old classics. Some of the members are Gulzar, filmmaker Shyam Benegal, director Kumar Shahni and Girish Kasaravalli, founder director of the National Film Archives of India P K Nair, and actress Jaya Bachchan. Also there are going to be foreign artists like Irish director Mark Cousins, Polish director Krzysztof Zanussi, and the director of an Italian Film Festival, Gian Luca Farinelli.
Dungarpur recently released a documentary on P K Nair, who is the founder of the National Film Archives of India. The name of this documentary was The Celluloid Man. It won several national and international awards, and was a part of 17 film festivals all over the world.The Celluloid Man was released on May 3, 2013, to mark the 100thanniversary of Raja Harishchandra, the first feature film of India.
Nair is the one man who is solely responsible for whatever still remains of the old films of this country. Out of approximately 1700 silent films made in India only 9 had survived due to the efforts of Nair. Raja Harishchandra was one of them.
According to Dungarpur, a great deal of classics were produced in the 1950s. However, almost 80 percent of them are lost like Alam Ara.
Dungarpur will start the restoration of films on June 28, with films likeMother India, Kaagaz Ke Phool, Pyaasa and Madhumati.