Stress on preserving films on celluloid

It was an engaging discussion on the urgent need to restore and preserve old films. And all the participants stressed on the role celluloid plays in doing so. The seminar, held as part of KIFF 2019 at the Kolkata Information Centre on the Nandan premises on Monday, was hosted by Haranath Chakraborty, Premendu Bikash Chaki and Tapan Bhattacharya.

Stressing on the importance of celluloid, noted film restorer from Chennai, Sreedhar Gopalan, said, “It might seem unreal, but it is the only reality.” He explained that while restoring, digitisation is the phase every movie has to go through, but it cannot be preserved in digital format for a number of reasons. Explaining the process of film preservation, he said, “After getting the best available print of the film from an old theatre or collector, it is digitised. Then, suing different software, we repair the film, make colour corrections and enhance the quality. Once that is done, it is saved in the best available resolution (4k or 8K),” he said, adding that more than 80% of the old film prints have been lost. But, it’s not possible to store them digitally forever since hard drives are very unreliable and get corrupted easily. “So, the only way to preserve a movie is to print it back on celluloid and preserve the film,” he said.

When asked how such a process would keep films relevant in the everchanging technological scenario, Gopalan said film restoration is cyclic process and in every five or 10 years, the print needs to be transferred to the latest format.