Friday, Jan 17, 2014
Mumbai: The National Museum of Indian Cinema (NMIC), showcasing the country’s rich film heritage over the past 100 years, will open on south Mumbai’s Pedder Road next month.
Union Minister for Information & Broadcasting Manish Tewari announced the development on Wednesday evening at the star-studded Life Ok Screen Awards function, where he was the chief guest.
“As 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 Rs6 billion [Dh358 million] National Film Heritage Mission to digitise the best of Indian cinematic works and archive them for the benefit of future generations,” said Tewari, while outlining various steps taken by the government to promote cinema in the country.
The ministry has also reviewed preparations for the museum’s inauguration with Films Division officials and experts, he said. An advisory committee headed by renowned filmmaker Shyam Benegal has guided the Films Division in establishing the museum.
The NMIC is situated in the 6,000 square feet (557 square metres) Gulshan Mahal — a heritage building in the upmarket Pedder Road area in the precincts of Films Division’s office. Gulshan Mahal’s interiors have been refurbished to house an interactive walk-through down cinema’s memory lane.
It is part of a larger complex measuring 50,000 sq ft that will come up in phases.
Interactive galleries will trace the evolution of celluloid from the Lumiere Brothers, Raja Harishchandra, the first 1913 Indian feature film in Marathi by Dadasaheb Phalke, the father of Indian cinema, onwards and showcase the country’s film history in three stages — silent, golden and modern era — recreating the times when stars and mega stars dominated the silver screen.
Visitors can also watch clips of old classics on a number of monitors or listen to rare film music from the past. There is also an interesting collection of posters of landmark movies from across India. A section on regional cinema will also be on display.
Many well-known studios of yesteryear like Mehboob, R.K. and Prasad have donated equipment to the museum. Some private collectors too have come forward to donate items.
The Films Division, which was set up in 1941 to produce short films to disseminate information during wartime, has also displayed old Eymo and Mitchel cameras, recording equipment and so on. Also of interest are some even older instruments that created an illusion of movement, which were a precursor to the movie camera.
NMIC is curated by the National Council of Science Museums, Kolkata, under the Ministry of Culture, which manages 55 various kinds of museums in the country.
By Pamela Raghunath Correspondent
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