How 'Thamp' was almost 'lost' and found

The restored Malayalam film, made in 1978, was screened at the Cannes Film Festival 2022

Last month, the 1978 classic Malayalam film "Thamp" (The Circus Tent) directed by G. Aravindan journeyed to the Cannes Film Festival 2022 after the combined restoration efforts of the Film Heritage Foundation and Prasad Corp, which specialises in film preservation, digitisation and restoration.

The only available film elements of "Thamp," a film about a travelling circus, were a dupe negative made from a print and a heavily used theatrical copy received from the NFAI, Pune, which was not in good condition. The negatives had a lot of heavy dust and dirt, scratches, image warping and flicker.

"If not restored, the world would have lost this historical and cultural gem," said Sai Prasad, Director, Prasad Corp.

"'Thamp' is not the first film we have restored for a Cannes screening. We had already done "The Red Shoes" in 4K digital restoration for Martin Scorsese, The Film Foundation," said Prasad.

The world's largest restoration facility, Prasad Corp, has partnered with the BBC, Disney, Warner Bros, Sony Pictures and Zee and has films like "My Fair Lady" and "Westside Story" in its 600-plus global roster of restored movies.

"For 'Thamp,' we put the elements through an ultrasonic cleaning before we could digitise them. Both the combined dupes and the print were scanned at 4K resolution in 16-bit with the image area exposed to the maximum aspect ratio to take up the stabilisation of the image better during restoration work."

"We took up the stabilisation, de-flickering and elimination of scratches and dirt without touching the film grain," said Prasad. "The grading has been supervised by the DOP of the film Shaji Karun and G Aravindan's son Ramu Aravindan at L'Immagine Ritrovata, film restoration laboratory in Bologna."

Prasad Corp works with Government archives, television broadcasters, film production studios and educational institutions to offer solutions for preventive conservation, physical restoration, film/video digitisation, digital film restoration (picture and sound), mastering, QC services, and the required digital deliverables for their theatrical, broadcast or OTT needs.

"Almost half of all films made before 1950 have been lost due to improper storage and care," said Prasad. "Preserving our cinematic heritage for future generations must be done. We need to create awareness of preservation and restoration not just from a monetary point of view but from a social and cultural heritage perspective."

Prasad Corp is currently working on many projects from the large studios in the US and the National Archive of Estonia for digitisation and restoration of their heritage assets. They are also a primary partner for restoring the heritage films stored by the NFDC/NFAI in India.

(Neeti Jaychander is a journalist, writer and lecturer based in Chennai.)