Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur on Thursday announced that the world’s largest film restoration project under National Film Heritage Mission (NFHM) with a budget of Rs 363 crore was awarded by the Ministry. The restoration project is now set to commence in full swing at the National Film Archive of India (NFAI). The Minister was in Pune to attend the review meeting of the organisation.
Under National Film Heritage Mission, approximately 2,200 films will undergo restoration. The titles have been shortlisted by language wise committees consisting of filmmakers, documentary filmmakers, film historians, producers etc. Eminent film personalities such as Aparna Sen, Shriram Raghavan, Anjali Menon and Vetrimaaran were part of the committees.
“National Film Heritage Mission in addition to restoration also involves the on-going preservation processes of film condition assessment, preventive conservation and digitization, with the total allocated budget of Rs. 597 crores, which is one of the world’s largest film preservation mission,” the Minister said.
“The process involves frame-to-frame digital and semi-automated manual picture and sound restoration from the best surviving source material.
The source negative/print will be scanned at 4K to .dpx files, which will be then digitally restored. The damages including scratches, dirt and abrasions in every frame of the picture negative will be cleaned during the restoration process.
The sound also restored in a process similar to the picture restoration procedure. The numerous pops, hisses, crackles and distortions on the sound negative will be digitally removed.
After restoration, the digital picture files will be color graded(DI process) and balanced to achieve the look of the film at the time of the original release,” said I&B Ministry in a statement.