Digital technology needs to prove itself: P.K Nair

One cannot turn a blind eye on the notion that digital technology can restore the films for generation, remarked P.K Nair former director national film archives in India. He was inaugurating a seminar on ‘first century of Indian cinema preserving, heritage, celebrating, diversity, restoration curtain’. Since digital technology is not a standardized format, It has incapability to assimilate new forms of technology. Moreover image quality is also a matter of concern and could only guarantee upto 20 years of longevity for the film. He expressed the concern in an emotional way.

Mr. Nair also expressed his disappointment on the fact that only 9 films had been preserved in the national film archives section out of the 1200 odd films released in the pre independence era. Concerns such as inflammable nature of silver nitrate films, washing of films and the deliberate damaging of films in the 1940’s made the situation worse than earlier. MR Nair was honored by the Chalachitra academy chairman Priyadarshan on behalf of the academy as he was presented a memento with respect to his selfless contribution towards Indian cinema.

    Noted film historian Theodore Bhaskaran emphasized on tapping the potential of secondary sources unorthodox materials so as to redefine the history thereby rewriting the history of India in a bigger picture even film magazines were seen as unworthy in that era, remarked bhaskaran

Film scholar, Aruna vasudev stressed on the need to preserve the films so as to depict the socio cultured history to be looked upon judge and introspect by the future generation

Film archivist, Nasreen kapoor while speaking underlined on using new media such as internet so as to connect the information between the past represent a standardization methodology is also important to find revenues since it is impractical for such a big industry to preserve all the films released in India.

Famous Indian historian and documentarian, Venkitesh Chakravarthy blamed the inertia of film archive section that fails to keep in match with the changes in industry .He underlined the need of a compulsory deposit by film company’s efficient state archives so as to carry the content

Mohan Krishnan head crop of Prasad laboratories demonstrated a power point presentation on the way in which digital technology works he out lined threats such as data migration, responsibility in preservation, technological obsolescence as potential dangers in Film restoration.

   C.S Venkiteshwaran, famous film critic and moderator of the seminar described ‘Cinema as a part of India’s cultural tradition. All the films restored in digital form are to put in public domain. The selection criteria of which all films are to be selected for restoration poses a much bigger question-he added.

Prasad, technical assistant of Prasad laboratory answered the doubts and concerns of the audience regarding the technical and futuristic implications of film archiving process. IFFK artistic director Bina Paul Venugopal also attended the function.