MUMBAI: Infrastructure Building for Minds and Markets (IBM2) session, which is a parallel event to the screenings at the ongoing 10th Osian’s-Cinefan film festival, opened with its first session on The Archive Today: Potentials for Research, Creativity and Wealth.

The session witnessed a panel of cultural thinkers in the field of Film archiving like David Weisman, Anthony slide, Robert Gitt, Jeannine Oppewall and Loubna Regragui. The moderator for the session was the founder chairman of Osian’s, Neville Tuli.

Sharing his views on archiving, Anthony Slide said, “Today the scenario of Film Archiving has changed considerably and is more focussed on not just preservation but in being more accessible to the audiences.”

Following Slide, Robert Gitt who at present has a collection of around 2,50, 000 films in his archive, shared his journey on Film archiving. He was of the opinion that moving images, especially the endangered ones, need to be rescued and preserved for the generations to come.

“Cinema is a vulnerable Art which needs to be protected and preserved. This field needs immense commitment and creativity along with action and a lot more needs to be done for Film Preservation,” Thomson Foundation for Film and TV Heritage Coordination project manager Loubna Regragui stated.

Jeannine Oppewall, who is co-chairing the museum committee at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, stressed the need for building museums. She further stated, “There has always been a common debate, whether museums must be built for the love of art or for commercial reasons.”

Expressing his views on Archiving, the producer of The Kiss of the Spider Woman, David Weisman said, “Negligence towards film archiving is like eating the fruit and letting the tree die."

Weisman further reiterated that he had archived manuscripts, copyrights and the like related to The Kiss of the Spiderwoman, and he considered this a creative voyage of his life.

Concluding the discussion, Neville Tuli said, “Taking into consideration the current scenario, problems for preservation is a result of the attitudes of the masses.”

Adding further, he said, Osian’s has always strived to preserve every form of art and today it owns the largest collection of Film Memorabilia comprising lobby cards, posters, photographs etc. At Osian’s, the process has always been towards placing the arts at the heart of India’s developmental framework.

The session also discussed digital technology of archiving which has become well known as a technique of preservation. But one needs to also understand that it can tend to ruin the effect of the original film. Also, an individual/ institution building an archive should be an inspiration to the creative minds.