The National Museum of Indian Cinema (NMIC), which will showcase India's rich film heritage over the past 100 years, will open in Mumbai next month.
Announcing this at a film awards function in Mumbai, Minister for Information & Broadcasting Manish Tewari said: "As the Indian cinema enters a new century, the national museum of Indian cinema coming up in Mumbai is a small tribute of the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting to the great film heritage of India”. “We have also launched a Rs 600 crore National Film Heritage Mission to digitise best of Indian cinematic works and archive them for the benefit of future generations" Tewari said, while dwelling upon the initiatives taken by the UPA government to promote cinema in India.
Tiwari on Wednesday reviewed the preparations for museum's inauguration with Films Division officials and experts.
The National Museum of Indian Cinema is coming up on the 6,000 square-foot Gulshan Mahal, a heritage building on Pedder Road in South Mumbai. Gulshan Mahal's interiors have been refurbished to house an interactive walkthrough down cinema's memory lane. It is part of a larger complex of 50,000 sqft that will come up in phases.
The museum will be a ready-reckoner of the history of Indian cinema showcasing technological aspects of production and screening of films, as well as its social aspects during the past 100 years. Through its interactive galleries, it will trace the evolution of celluloid from the lumiere Brothers, Raja Harishchandra onwards, and showcase Indian cinema in three stages — silent era, golden era and the modern era.