PANJIM: The proposed National Film Heritage Mission that will seek to preserve, restore and digitise films will be one of government’s landmark initiatives for films in the country, additional secretary, Union Information and Broadcasting Ministry Rajavendra Singh said on Tuesday.
Singh, who is down in Goa for the International Film Festival of India (IFFI), said that the government was also in the process of signing MOUs with China and Canada for co-production of films.
“China only takes some 20 foreign films per year. Out of these around 15 are normally from Hollywood. Even our good films like ‘Three Idiots’ was bought cheaply,” he said, adding that co-production could circumvent this particular problem.
Speaking on preservation/digitisation, he said that the National Film Archives would be the agency designated to carry out the task and some 30 odd people would be trained to carry out the job.
He said that there would be a committee to assess what needed to be preserved, or restored or digitized. After that there needs to be some internal revenue generation model.
Goa, that has been hosting IFFI from 2004, has been declared the permanent venue this year.
