National Film Archive acquires 89 prints of 'lost' Marathi and Hindi movies

The National Film Archive of India (NFAI) has acquired 89 prints in 16mm and 35mm formats in a major acquisition. Most of these films are in Marathi from the 1950s to the 1970s while some are in Hindi. Of these, 23 are in black and white.

Prakash Magdum, director of NFAI, said in a statement, “We are delighted to receive this significant collection of films belonging to the golden era of Marathi cinema and a few well-known Hindi films.

"The exciting thing is there are a few rare films, including Tai Teleen (1953) and Pavnakathcha Dhondi (1966), which were believed to be lost but now they are part of NFAI.

"I take this opportunity to appeal [to] film producers, distributors and individual collectors to come forward and submit films as well as film publicity material for preservation, with the purpose of safeguarding our cinematic heritage.”

Directed by KP Bhave and Anto Narhari, Tai Teleen is a historical film starring Shanta Apte, Sudha Apte, Nalini Borkar and Zunzarrao Pawar.

Anant Thakur’s Pavnakathcha Dhondi is another major film recovered which was considered lost. It was produced by Usha Mangeshkar under her banner Mahalakshmi Chitra and starred Jayshree Gadkar and real-life brothers Chandrakant and Suryakant. It was a rare film where the brothers played on-screen brothers.

Other notable Marathi films recovered in this lot include Dev Pavla (1950), Bhaubeej (1955), Antaricha Diva (1960), Subhadra Haran (1964), Bara Varshe Saha Mahine Teen Diwas (1967), Dhakti Bahin (1970) and Pudhari (1972).

Among the Hindi films recovered are Shakti Samanta’s Naughty Boy (1962) and Aman (1967), which has rare cameos by ghazal maestro Jagjit Singh and the British Nobel laureate Bertrand Russell.