The Centre should take steps to acquire the commercial rights of films it has kept in the national archives to screen them for the public, former National Film Archive of India (NFAI) director P K Nair said today.
"Most of the films at the archives cannot be screened by them as the rights are with many private individuals who cannot often be identified. Realising the importance of film preservation and its use, the government should take steps in this direction," Nair said at a function arranged by Film Lovers Cultural Society (FILCA) to felicitate him.
Nair had recently won the Lifetime Achievement Award in the field of film preservation instituted by the British Film Institute and South Asian Cinema Foundation.
FILCA also gave away an award of Rs 25,000 to Nair for his meritorious contribution to Indian cinema. A special screening of "Celluloid Man," a documentary on Nair by Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, one of his former student, was also held.
About the documentary on his life, Nair said though he was a bit hesitant at first to agree to Dungarpur's project, it later came out well. "During the process of film-making, we began to discover each other," he said. The film had won two national awards in 2012.
