Original negative of Kasaravalli’s 'Dweepa' was left to rot for six years for want of Rs 30,000

Bengaluru: The original camera negative of a film that won two national awards was left to rot for six years for want of Rs 30,000.

Legendary Kannada filmmaker Girish Kasaravalli’s 2002 film Dweepa, starring yet another legendary name in the south, Telugu superstar Soundarya, who also produced the film, had been moved to a warehouse with no air conditioning – without it the negative deteriorates – after the closing of Prasad Labs in Chennai six years ago.

The negative was stored in the lab, which had asked for Rs 30,000 as a one-time fee to release it from its storage.

"When the lab was shut down, it instructed the producer of the film to collect the negative after paying the fee," Kasaravalli told PTI.

But Kasaravalli said the process got complicated as the producers of the film, Soundarya and her brother Amarnath passed away in a tragic aircraft crash in 2004, and Soundarya’s husband, G S Raghu, who now has the rights to the film, is not a film professional and has no interest in the movie.

"Also, we were in a dilemma. National Film Archive of India (NFAI) had stopped accepting films for storage because it was going to shut down (in March 2022, NFAI merged with National Film Development Corporation). Even if we had gotten the negative, there was no place to store it. Private archives charge a monthly rent for storage, but who will foot the bill?" added Kasaravalli.

On March 4, during a master class session on Dweepa, for the 15th Bengaluru International Film Festival (BIFFes), G S Bhaskar, a noted cinematographer who had worked with Kasaravalli on his film on Gandhi and Kurmavatara, had informed those gathered that Prasad Lab has now agreed to release the film.

The session was moderated by Bhaskar and saw the technicians of Dweepa, cinematographer H M Ramachandra Halkere, who had won the national award for Best Cinematography for the film and art director Shashidhar Adapa, as well as Kasaravalli discuss its making in detail.

"I was just informed about it, I guess it may take about two weeks to finalise all the formalities," Bhaskar told PTI after the session.

"Now, we need to figure out the extent of the damage to the negative and restore it. Soundarya’s husband is willing to give the rights of the film to anyone willing to restore it," Kasaravalli told PTI.

This is just half the bridge crossed, Halkere pointed out.

"Right now, in India, Mumbai-based Film Heritage Foundation (FHF) is the go-to organisation for restoring damaged films. But it is for them to decide whether they want to restore Dweepa or not," said Halkere.

When contacted, founder-director of FHF, Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, a filmmaker himself, said if films by Kasaravalli require restoration or preservation, FHF will do it without a second thought.

"This is at the core of what we do at FHF – we look for films that are invaluable but are lost somehow, preserve and restore them. We also have a temperature and humidity controlled vault where films can be stored. Normally, say if Farhan Akhtar wants to use our services, we will charge him, of course. But if it is Kasaravalli’s films, we will do everything we can to improve public access to those gems, even if we are not going to be paid for it," Dungarpur told PTI over the phone.

He also pointed out that FHF has already committed itself to digitally restore Kasaravalli’s 'Ghatashraddha' (1977).

FHF is teaming up with Martin Scorsese and George Lucas to digitally restore ‘Ghatashraddha’ as part of its World Cinema Project, founded by Scorsese and funded by Lucas, he said.

"The digital restoration of ‘Ghatashraddha’ will be done at L’Immagine Ritrovate in Bologna, Italy from the original camera negative preserved at NFAI," said Kasaravalli.

As for Dweepa, first must start from restoring the damage done to the original camera negative, added Kasaravalli, who has won 14 national awards.

Kasaravalli estimates that even a partial restoration will cost anything between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 5 lakh.

Dungarpur said one of FHF’s recent projects involved the restoration of Odia film, Māyā Miriga by Nirad Mohapatra, which too was languishing at the warehouse of Prasad Lab.

"They had removed 12 reels of the 16 mm original camera negative from the lab storage for non-payment of dues. You know, Māyā Miriga is the most celebrated film in the history of Odia cinema," said Dungarpur.

According to him, the retrieved reels had deteriorated so badly that it took them several months of manual patching up before it could be sent to Bologna for scanning.

"The reels had broken perforations, shrinkage, mould, halos, strong base distortion and colour fading. It was so bad that when scanned, the image was blurred, had scratches, tears, dust and dirt, frequent and long lasting vertical lines and halos. We had to restore some portions using the two 35 mm prints that were stored at NDFC-NFAI, but they were bad too – faces were blurred and film was grainy. We had to make do with whatever we had. In all, it took us three years," said Dungarpur.

Whether Dweepa will face a similar fate will be known only after assessing the damage done to the negative, said Kasaravalli.

"But of course whoever is restoring it will be doing it for the love of cinema, because no one is going to make any money from Dweepa anymore," he added.