Film fraternity urges Centre to not merge/shut movie our bodies

More than 1,500 filmmakers, teachers, college students, and members of the civil society signed a letter Thursday, as a part of a signature marketing campaign, to be introduced to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. The letter opposes the Centre’s choice to merge the public-funded establishments Films Division (FD), National Film Archive of India (NFAI), Directorate of Film Festivals (DFF), and Children’s Films Society of India (CFSI), with the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC), earlier than the tip of January.
The ministry, below former I&B minister Prakash Javadekar, had introduced in December final 12 months to merge the 4 public our bodies with NFDC, a “loss-making” public sector enterprise.
In the letter, dated December 19, 2021, the signatories expressed shock that the 2019 Bimal Julka High-Powered Committee report was submitted “without engaging with the primary stakeholders”, together with “members of the film fraternity and employees of the above-mentioned institutions”. It additional raises concern in regards to the fraternity/public’s “inaccessibility of the original report” despite an RTI utility. It seeks the discharge of the unique report, on the premise of which the restructuring is happening. The Ministry, in an announcement final 12 months, had really useful a overview of the functioning/closure of NFDC and CFSI, to be merged below an “Umbrella Organisation”, which, technically, ought to have been Films Division, the largest of all these 5 entities, with over 400 workers throughout India, says a senior official on the FD.

Naseeruddin Shah and Ratna Pathak Shah are among the many signatories. (Photo: Express Archives)
The signatories embody actor Naseeruddin Shah, Ratna Pathak Shah, Sonali Kulkarni, filmmakers Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Goutam Ghose, Vikramaditya Motwane, Ashim Ahluwalia, Gitanjali Rao, Nandita Das, Pushpendra Singh, Sanjay Kak, Payal Kapadia, Sanal Ok Sasidharan, cinematographer RV Ramani, editor and IDSFFK creative director Bina Paul, lyricist-writer Varun Grover, amongst others.
Filmmaker Prateek Vats, one of many drafters of the letter, stated, “There is a deliberate attempt to create confusion and obfuscate things. Earlier, meetings would take place and the minutes would be shared in public domain. Right now, we don’t know the state of affairs as no information has been handed out. One day we are told that these institutions will be ‘merged’, later we are told that they are being ‘shut down’. These institutions have existed for a while, of course, they need an upgrade. But shutting down things is not the way.”
In a letter dated December 7, 2021, addressed to I&B Minister Anurag Thakur, Kerala’s Rajya Sabha MP John Brittas asserted the “merger” of the 4 public our bodies below NFDC is a “deviation from the recommendations of Bimal Julka Committee Report”, and sought readability to handle the fears of doable “real-estate business” within the matter in addition to “the uncertainty about the future of non-profit activities of FD, NFAI, and DFF”. Every week later, the Centre ordered the shutting down of all of the FD branches, NFAI and CFSI earlier than January finish. “Nobody I know of has seen the Bimal Julka Committee Report,” stated Vats.

The signatories urge the federal government to “declare FD, NFAI, CFSI archives as National Heritage”, search “transparency” and an “abeyance” within the restructuring course of of those establishments until these points are addressed. “Obviously, this merger doesn’t seem to behove well for the larger good of preserving our film history. Some of these institutions have recorded India’s history almost since independence. Let there be wider public debate with stakeholders and concerned citizens before any drastic policy decision is taken,” says movie historian Amrit Gangar. His workforce arrange the primary computerised database of all FD manufacturing of movies since inception in 1948 to 1991. He was the curator for National Museum of Indian Cinema arrange by FD below MIB.
“We are able to make films, especially documentary films, only with foreign funding, where we go with begging bowls. On one hand, you say Make in India, and on the other hand, you are privatising government/public bodies. They tried to privatise FTII, too. International grants are highly competitive, and don’t give grants to films on art and culture, or history – which the FD and Public Service Broadcasting Trust supported. PSBT has stopped commissioning/funding, but when they did, hundreds of films were made in a year. FD and PSBT support enabled regional films and non-cosmopolitan, non-English-speaking filmmakers from smaller towns and villages. With this merger/closure, whatever little support there was to us, goes away,” says documentary filmmaker Nishtha Jain. She mentions that FD properties and that of the opposite our bodies are located in prime places, and there is perhaps company/real-estate curiosity in them going ahead.
Plus, if the brand new physique below NFDC will “target the OTTs, it defeats the purpose” as for that Bollywood is already there. “The big OTTs in India don’t showcase Indian documentary films, and if the films are even slightly critical of the government or the majoritarian ideology, those films won’t get the green light,” added Jain.
“This (merger/closure) is an attempt by the government to control the freedom of expression at every cost, to control the whole ecosystem of audiovisual medium,” stated National Award-winning documentary filmmaker Anand Patwardhan, “These are public assets and should remain as such, and not controlled by a single-point person.”
In October, the Delhi High Court dismissed FD employees’s petition difficult the Cabinet “merger” choice as “premature”.
Speaking on situation of anonymity, a senior official at FD stated, “Time to time, there have been attempts to streamline FD’s activities. Established more than 70 years back, naturally, you have to. Celluloid to digital activities transition should have been streamlined long before. The 1997 Shyam Benegal Committee Report expanded the charter of the Films Division,” however the suggestions weren’t carried out. “After the newsreel era, filmmakers could release 20-minute social issue-based documentaries in theatres. These screenings were mandatory, and 1 percent of the income collection went to FD, but over time, this too stopped.”

Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu lately conferred Rajinikanth with the celebrated Dadasaheb Phalke Award.
FD was requested to make a movie on Rajinikanth to be screened on the National Film Awards this 12 months, earlier than conferring the Dadasaheb Phalke Award to the actor. “We made the film, which started with a lovely interview of actor Kamal Haasan, which we were asked to cut. Rajinikanth seemed upset about it but kept quiet. This is the kind of control exerted by the PM ad cell, under the PMO, which has been micro-monitoring in the last two years. It controls an FD film’s final content even after the FD director general approves a film. You are cheating people if in the name of documentary, the films being commissioned/produced are pro-government. The censor board itself is in charge here,” stated the senior official. Last week, the CBFC chief govt officer Ravinder Bhakar changed FD director normal Smita Vats Sharma and in addition took cost as the pinnacle of NFDC and CFSI. “The NFDC is also being used for political purposes ahead of crucial state elections,” he added.

NFAI has round 9,000 titles in its audio-visual archives, he stated, including, “Crores of money has been pumped into the National Film Heritage Mission (NFHM) project. Films of Mrinal Sen, for instance, which were anti-establishment, were restored. How will all of that fit in now? If it is used for making money, the entire meaning becomes different. Heritage archiving is to preserve our history, not to make money. When the government stops funding, it will be in the red, and they might opt for disinvestments. It’s absurd that the NFHM should go to the market. NFAI and FD Archives should be declared national heritage.” Another FD employees member added, “As employees, we should know where we are going to be? There’s no clarity from the government.”