After Aravindan’s Kummatty, Film Heritage Foundation to restore Amma Ariyan

The ninth edition of the Film Preservation and Restoration Workshop India will be held in Thiruvananthapuram from November 7 to 14.
Screenshot from 'Amma Ariyan'
Screenshot from 'Amma Ariyan'Courtesy - Sanju K S / YouTube
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The team that restored G Aravindan's much-adored children's film Kummatty is now planning to restore John Abraham’s 1986 cult classic Amma Ariyan, an experimental film. They would also be conducting the ninth edition of the Film Preservation and Restoration Workshop India in Thiruvananthapuram from November 7 to 14.

Film archivist and restorer Shivendra Singh Dungarpur who made the acclaimed documentary Celluloid Man on PK Nair, the founder of National Film Archive of India, is bringing the workshop to Kerala. It is put together by his organisation Film Heritage of India along with the International Federation of Film Archives. The workshop will take place at the Vyloppilly Samskrithi Bhavan.

Kummatty (1979) was restored by Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project, Film Heritage Foundation and the Cineteca di Bologna film archive in Italy. "We are restoring another film called Amma Ariyan, by John Abraham. That will be our second film from Kerala. The journey began with Celluloid Man and [the late] PK Nair was quite instrumental in putting us through this whole journey of film preservation and restoration. I hope this workshop will have the impact of making us realise how much of the heritage is in jeopardy. If we don't take urgent steps the heritage of films in Kerala will be in danger," Shivendra tells TNM. 

Screenshot from 'Amma Ariyan'
Generations come together to revisit Aravindan’s Kummatty at Kerala’s IFFK

The workshop includes sessions and training in cinema, video, audio, digital preservation, film conservation and restoration, digitisation, disaster recovery, cataloguing, paper, photograph conservation and programming. Experts from the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, British Film Institute,  L'Immagine Ritrovata, Bologna, Institute National de l'Audiovisuel, Fondation Jérôme Seydoux - Pathé and Cineteca Portuguesa, will lead the sessions. 

Some of the restored films will also be screened at the Sree Theatre in Thiruvananthapuram every evening from November 8 to 13, at 6.30. Entry is free. The films to be screened are The General (1926 silent film), Camp De Thiaroye (1988), Ukrainian film Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965), Indian film Manthan (1976), Italian film 8 ½ (1963) and French film Le Samourai (1967).

Screenshot from 'Amma Ariyan'
What it means to watch Manthan, the 1976 film funded by 50,000 farmers, in 2024

Filmmakers and artists including Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Kamal Haasan, Mammootty and Amitabh Bacchhan have voiced their support for the initiative, stressing on the importance of archiving and restoring films.

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