3) The 1960s were a period when several state film organisations were created in this country (FTI, FCC, NFAI). Did these new organisations change anything for Films Division (created earlier in 1948)? How did their promotion of 'good quality' cinema influenced documentary filmmaking in India?

Radical change took place in the 1960s. The first batches of students came out from the Film Institute and started to work for FD, they were more rebellious compared to the previous generation of FD directors. They didn't want to make official statements, even when graduates entered the feature film industry (like Kumar Shahani, Mani Kaul etc.), their personal priorities were more important than those of the government. Such films were appreciated by a small audience, which slowly grew over time.

In the 1960s, not only filmmakers, but also technicians came out of the Institute, where they had been exposed to world cinema. The previous generation had now idea about world cinema. This was also the time when the film society movement and the Film Finance Corporation started.

This was also an era of specialisation, filmmakers would make ethnographic medical, political, cultural documentaries. They explored their subjects in greater details, films became more intense, and growingly depended on the attitude and viewpoints of the filmmakers.

4) What was the exact role and significance of private companies in the development of FD and documentary film in general? Have you seen such films and do you know where they can be accessed?

Private companies like Burmah-Shell had no background in filmmaking. Because they made huge profits in India, they decided to make films to return some of what they had gained to the people of India. So, they started to make films on villages etc. The films were making no reference to Shell or to the oil industry. Paul Zils played a key role in producing such films. Many filmmakers who worked with him later worked for FD. For example, 'Village in Punjab'was Sukhdev's first film experience, as an actor, not yet as a filmmaker.

Another important private player was 'Image India', which started to distribute films soon after the war. The company was run by Clement Baptista and Vijaykar, who used to work as cameramen for the British film units during the war. Based in Bombay, they made longer documentaries compared to FD. Baptista and Vijaykar never worked for FD, but some of their collaborators did. They also had a unit in Calcutta, run by Shanti Chowdhury, who was close to Satyajit Ray, and another one in Bangalore. They operated until the rise of television in the mid-1970s.

5) What was the importance of the documentary film in a national context dominated by commercial cinema and slowly from the mid-1970s onwards by television?

Commercial cinema was so strong in terms of popularity that the documentary could not get all the attention, it was very difficult for any other type of film to make a breakthrough. They had to depend on other avenues, like the special screenings and discussions organised by film societies. Because it was a national movement, one film was screened in one city and then moved on to another one. This is how such documentaries could be seen all over the country, but within smaller audiences. Educational institutions, factories provided other screenings opportunities, anywhere where a crowd could be gathered and a screening organised. This is how documentary audiences slowly grew.

Before private distributors sprung up, press clubs all over India were probably the best way to access the audience. Because if journalists liked the film, they would write about it in the local press and people would get to know about it.

After the development of television in the 1970s, FD's news reviews lost its importance. Their weekly reports could not compete with the daily news available on Doordarshan (public TV network). So, FD lost this role of delivering news to the people, and later in the 1990s, it lost its role as the main documentary production centre.

State documentaries were non-partisan, they did not take sides, especially on controversial issues like religious communalism. This is the main difference between public and private or independent films. Filmmakers could not really present their personal viewpoint and this is why they lost value in the eyes of the general audience.

6) Who are the most significant individual contributors to the documentary field over the period from 1948 to 1975? Why were they important?

The most interesting documentaries were made in the 1960s, with films like 'Face to Face' or 'India 67', which interviewed people in the streets and became more democratic. These films were made when Jean Bhownagary became FD's Chief Adviser. Indira Gandhi, who had a strong interest in films, brought him (from France) to India and he changed the entire attitude towards documentary filmmaking. He decided that both positive and negative stories should be told, such as the negative consequences of trains running late in 'Night Mail' (by John Grierson). It was a way to make the message of the films more acceptable to the audience. They had their official versions of events of course, and only a few critical films were made, such as 'Bright Burning' or this film on untouchability by Murthy. The audience appreciated this change. Numerous Indian filmmakers made a difference, such as Bilimoria, Suhdev, Sastri, Chari, who was a scriptwriter turned filmmaker and quite a rebel... Most of these filmmakers were noticed by Jean Bhownagary. Many of them passed away during service in FD, like Chari, Sastri, Lalwani, Pati, Chowdhury... and even Sukhdev.

Foreigners also made important contributions, Jean Bhownagary was half-French, half-Indian. Marie Setton was deputed by the BFI to come to India. She took films to educational institutions to start film clubs in each and everyone of them. They were called 'Central Film Libraries' and were precursors of the film archives. This project was Nehru's idea, but it was seriously taken up by Indira Gandhi in the 1960s. Marie Setton gave lectures on film appreciation and organised film clubs, sometimes with the assistance of film societies. She was doing a similar job in the UK, and Indira Gandhi knew her work. She was in India when Jean Renoir shot 'The River' and when Satyajit Ray released 'Pather Panchali'. She took the film to the BFI and the following year, it was selected and won an award at the Cannes film festival. She was very much part of India in that period. She suggested names to the Film Institute. She was a film theoretician, not a filmmaker, yet she was very sympathetic to FD. She was also asked to write a report to assess the work of the children film societies, which was very political at the time, so she did not get a lot of cooperation from them. I don't know where is this report now.

James Beveridge, from the National FIlm Board of Canada, was another important foreign figure. He was part of the Burmah-Shell unit, and was mainly interested in the cultural side of India. In 1974-1976, he joined the TV wing of the institute, as part of a Unesco programme to study SITE, the satellite TV experiment run in Indian villages in 1974. He made some experimental projects too. Some of the films would have two versions, a longer one for the Canadian television (such as 'A Village in West Bengal', which included an introduction and a conclusion), and a shorter one for the Indian market. Later in the 1990s, he also contributed to setting up the mass communication department in Jamia Millia Islamia university in Delhi.

I already mentioned the role of Paul Zils of course.

7) What was the exact impact of the former British colonial film units and their films made in India (1940-1946) on the organization of FD and its films?

Documentary started as a propaganda wing of the British government and continued the same film format, using the same staff. So, there was a continuity of mindset and of filmmaking practices.

8) What was the importance of documentary films in international film festivals?

Indian documentaries were noticed in international film festivals, especially in the mid-1960s up to the 1970s. The work of Sukhdev, for instance, was acknowledged by international audiences. So, yes, Indian documentaries had a noticeable place in the international film festival scene.

9) What were the main similarities and differences between documentaries made and parallel cinema/art films in terms of content and form? Why were they similar and/or different?

Both developed at the same time. It was a time of tremendous change for filmmakers. Light-weight equipment became available. The documentary was more and more tuned to outdoor shooting, using handheld camera. It became acceptable and popular against the convention of static and tripod-based shots. The whole idea of filmmaking changed. People accepted approximate exposure, shaky camera movements as a film style. Beautiful, steady and easy to watch images were not the only accepted style anymore.

These new cameras also allowed unusual camera angles. So, the framing conventions changed. It became a technical possibility, but it was also accepted by the audience. It was mostly experienced in documentary cinema, and was later taken up by feature filmmakers. Short films were also influenced by documentary film style, they were called 'experimental films' at the time. For instance, Ray made a short called Pappu on world theatre for a foreign organisation in the late 1950s. The film did not get a big release of course, but overall documentaries and parallel cinema belonged to the same world. Also, feature filmmakers also made documentary films, just like what happened in the previous period of Indian cinema.

Sound design also benefited from technological progress. Microsphones became more and more sensitive and allowed to record sounds that could not be recorded before, such as distant sounds for instance. This new technology was first used by documentary filmmakers. There was no synch-sound at the time, and even if they could have done, they would not have, it was considered too edgy. Even today, in the mainstream film industry at least, there is still a strong resistance to use synch-sound.

'Dos and dont's' were difficult to change, but documentary filmmakers dared to broke away from existing conventions. But once change started, it was very fast, mainly with the advent of the video in the 1980s and the digital in the 2000s.

10) What is your assessment of the existing collection of FD documentaries?

I know that some films are not there at all. But determining the exact state of the film catalogue is a very difficult task, one would need to seat there and check the titles one by one, even the staff genuinely does not know. Some films are probably damaged beyond repair.

In the end, they only show what they want to the public, especially with politically sensitive films. I know, for instance, that a documentary was made about Narayan during the Emergency. He was strongly anti-Indira Gandhi. The film compared him to Hitler. This film is not available anymore. Many such films have been destroyed after the Emergency, although there is no official record of such destructions. Each government makes sure the next government will not see and use their films against them, yet, it remains very difficult to prove since there is no record of such actions. Take Sukhdev's film '9 Months to Freedom' about the war, which led to the creation of Bangladesh. This film was not available in Bangladesh for a very long time and if it had, it would probably had been destroyed by the ruling regime. It is only recently that the new government has been requesting a copy of that film.

This is when the archives should come in, to show world's history without any political interference. Archives can prevent destruction, but once it is done, nothing can be done anymore.

11) FD was never conceived as an archive, however, this mission is also resting upon their shoulders. What do you think of film preservation in India, and of the importance attributed to the documentary within such policies?

It is only after 20 or 30 years of existence that FD realised the importance of preserving its films. I was invited to FD's 50th anniversary celebrations. There, I asked them to show the first news review. But they didn't have it, so they showed the oldest one they could find, which was in Hindi, not in English. This is a big problem, they should have been told early on about the need to preserve their films. It did not occur to anyone that at some point, someone would ask for their oldest news review. Thinking about it 20 or 30 years later is too late. There is no 'archival mind' in India. Shall we put the blame on independence after so many decades of colonial rule? But I think if one is patriotically-tuned, one should also preserve what belongs to the heritage of a nation, fighting for independence does not suffice.

Even students from the Institute have little interest in old Indian films, unless they are making films on the subject and require footage from such films. In a sense, the documentary 'Celluloid Man' about my work and about the film archives is a tool to raise awareness about film preservation.


Also, another organisation should have taken this responsibility, FD is not an archive but a film production unit.

I think we should make an effort to look for films outside the country. I know there is a lot of material in the Library of Congress dating back to 1900s, but it remains unidentified and therefore requires that someone knowledgeable about Indian cinema looks into it and makes a record. There are probably films in Africa too, where Indian films used to circulate. In the end, one should not lose hope, 'Alam Ara' (the first Indian talking film) is probably somewhere. Unexpected circumstances can lead to discover old films, but not necessarily in India.

Another problem is that India produces a huge number of films every year, so how do you select what to keep and what not to keep?

My main advice would be to look at the situation from the point of view of the times. When I left NFAI in 1991, the archives held about 12000 titles. They were classified according to 3 categories: acquired, long term loans (LTL) and short term loans (STL). Today, only the acquired films are being maintained. I don't know how many are in good enough conditions. Many of them have been thrown away or even sold as waste films, but as long as the emulsion is there, the film can be saved. It is very sad. The priority is to look at what we have and in what condition, to make an inventory of the films with their condition marked from 1 to 5 and start restoration from there. Even films kept in air-conditioned warehouse can be damaged beyond repair. The inventory would take around 6 months with a small team of technicians.

12) In the NFAI's library, I consulted film journals 'Screen' and 'Film India', some of which seem to be from your private collection. Could you tell me more about these two journals?

'Film India' dates back to 1939, I think. It was deposited in the archives by the editor, Mr. Patel, who had very strong views yet very changing views. Those who were his gurus in the 1930s-1940s became his biggest enemies later on. But he became a big authority and he was a very sensible film critic, until he started to see himself as more important than the filmmakers. His journal was later renamed 'Mother India', and 80% of its content became politics. He was strongly anti-Nehru and pro-Hindutva. Yet, the journal was popular among the film industry and film circles. It was the top film magazine in English in the country. I think he delivered his best writing during the first ten years of the journal.

'Screen' started later, in 1951, and continues today. It is a trade magazine, it provides information about the films, but the quality of the reviews depended on the reviewers. They were stock reviewers, as there were very few professional film critics at the time. These reviews were written by many people.

Other important magazines included the 'Illustrated Weekly of India', 'Filmfare' (which started in 1952 and still active today), 'Sound' (which stood against 'Film India' and Patel), 'Scene Voice', 'Movie Times'... Some of them, like 'Sound' were both political and film periodicals.