Archives of neglect

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Over the last 30 years, successive governments’ reluctance to formulate a policy for Bangladesh Film Archive (BFA), prepare a decent organogram for it and their use of the BFA for political purposes turned it into a poorly functioning institution.

The BFA, a department under the information ministry, is an example of how governments can make one of the departments non-functional and keep it ineffective year after year.

BFA officials, filmmakers and film experts said the BFA can also be an example of how successive governments can make political use of an institution which was established to pursue excellence in film-making through research and to take the film industry to international standards.

A recent decision the information ministry made regarding the BFA is the latest manifestation of the government’s approach to BFA.

The ministry observed that the BFA does not have the necessity of an ordinance or policy and the BFA would be considered as a department attached to the ministry and be operated by government rules and regulations.

The information ministry added that the effort the BFA made to have an ordinance or policy and redo its organogram is nothing but a sign of the BFA’s lack of knowledge of its own responsibility, information ministry minutes read. The BFA sent a proposed ordinance to the ministry in 2003 that also included a proposal to bring balance in its organogram.

All the guidelines or outlines the BFA has is just a brief incomplete four-page “report of the martial law on organisational set up” formulated in 1984 by the Enam Committee, which the then president Hossain Mohammad Ershad formed.

BFA officials and film experts said the Enam Committee report restricted BFA’s work mainly to collecting and preserving films and film related publications and exempted it from the responsibilities of conducting research, arranging film appreciation courses and technical training programmes.

The Enam Committee report did not have any specific or detailed guideline on collecting films from local and foreign sources. This hindered film collection and preservation and exposed films to damage and in some cases absolute destruction of films.

BFA sources added that the governments destroyed historically important films thanks to the absence of a policy and by making BFA a place to transfer bureaucrats and government officials as punishment.

“The Enam Committee report is not a rule. It is just the report of a committee. The BFA needs its own ordinance, rules and policy to ensure quality preservation of films. A policy is also needed to have modern equipments and facilities to preserve the present and the past in the most powerful form,” Mohammad Jahangir, director general (DG) of BFA, told The Daily Star.

“An organisation preserving films, which is like preserving artifacts, and has to deal with creative people must have a policy or ordinance. Otherwise the institution would never become a centre for different cultures and it would not be able to perform its job of informing the next generation about their history,” Jahangir added.

Jahangir said the BFA must have its own structure like Bangladesh National Museum and Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy considering the importance and benefits of the institution.

The DG, however, said, “We have recently introduced a research fellowship programme, started a project to modernise the film preservation process and we published our first-ever journal. The caretaker government has also decided to hand over the allotted 1.86 acre land for BFA in Agargaon.”

“Before a film archive is established, we must know the importance and benefits of the archive and criterions under which films are to be collected and preserved. It should not happen this way… once a government is changed the policy of an entire system gets changed and a certain genre of films is destroyed or removed in accordance with the likings of a government,” prominent artist Mustafa Monwar told The Daily Star.

“What has become of the BFA today is just because of putting people, who were never related to films, in charge of the BFA. None of the people appointed as BFA chief were ever involved in anything related to films and they did not even have the ability to understand films,” former director (design) of BTV and a film expert Mahiuddin Faruque told The Daily Star.

“I challenge you that you cannot name a single person appointed as chief of BFA as a film expert,” he told The Daily Star.

“It would be more appropriate if we consider the government’s approach to film archive as the making of a concentration camp by transferring government officials to an institution which has been neglected and been under-budgeted over the years. This is indeed a punishment for the government officials,” he added.

In the last 20 years since 1989-1990 fiscal year, the government has allocated about Tk 10 crore for the BFA.

A total of 17 transfers were made at the BFA with a number of them getting transferred to the BFA several times within a few months.

AKM Amzad Hossain was made DG of BFA thrice while Makbul Ahmed, Mahbubul Alam, Aminul Islam and Jahangir himself was made DG of BFA twice. Only the first curator of BFA AKM Abdur Rouf served for 13 years till 1991 and after that most of the DGs served their posts for periods ranging between two months to one and half years.

Replying to a question regarding political use and repeated transfers of director generals of the BFA, its chief Jahangir said, “It is the smallest department under the information ministry and one might feel deprived once he or she is transferred to the BFA. It is very normal.”

Information Secretary Jamil Osman could not be reached for his comments on the issue despite repeated attempts.

Film directors and film experts demand that the BFA is made autonomous.

ENAM COMMITTEE REPORT AND ORGANOGRAM
As the Enam Committee report restricted work of the BFA, the BFA has conducted only seven researches in 30 years by obtaining special permissions from the concerned ministry under “BFA Research Fellowship”, introduced in 2007. The BFA introduced the research for the first time in 2007 since its establishment.

BFA officials, however, said it would not be possible to continue with research by obtaining special permissions every year until the BFA is entrusted with the job in its own structure.

The BFA’s budget for 2007-2008 fiscal year is about Tk 1.30 crore including only Tk 5 lakh for research, Tk 7 lakh for training, Tk 10 lakh for publications, and only Tk 10 lakh for film collection and preservation, BFA sources said.

The BFA even has to get special permission for arranging any film festivals, film projections and certain publications. This hinders its activities. As a result, setting up of a film appreciation course remained inactive between 1985 and 2006. The BFA has so far arranged seven film appreciation courses, two advanced film appreciation courses and an animation filmmaking courses.

The BFA published its silver jubilee memorial publication one year after its silver jubilee anniversary in 2004 as the publication did not get permission in 2003. The publication was the first-ever publication of the BFA.

The Enam Committee report has also not defined ways to collect and preserve films. The report only mentioned that the duty of BFA is to “arrange collection of films from different sources for preservation in the film vaults”.

As of July, 2008, only 129 negatives of feature films and 21 negatives of documentaries are “preserved” at the BFA. The BFA has no negative of foreign films.

The BFA also has prints of 491 feature films, duplicates of negatives of 17 feature films, prints of 183 short films, prints of 995 documentaries, 239 news footages, 72 videos of feature films, and 57 videos of short films, a BFA publication said.

Of the foreign films, there are 54 DVDs of Indian films and 251 DVDs of different other foreign language films.

“A lot of the films the BFA so far preserved are in video format and you might find a number of shops in Dhaka selling videos or DVDs from a better collection and with better preservation method. This should not be the approach of a film archive,” said Mahiuddin Faruque.

“The government should have a criterion to collect films and encourage filmmakers to submit their films. A filmmaker cannot give a print of his film just after release. It should be purchased or the filmmaker can give it six months after the release of the film,” prominent filmmaker Morshedul Islam said.

Filmmakers also suggested amending the copyright law for submitting a print of their film after its release since it costs them around Tk 60,000 to Tk 70,000. They said film archives in foreign countries make prints of a film and pay the director in addition.

The Enam Committee report asked “to maintain the already established temperature” but did not specify the temperature that should be maintained. The report does not have any suggestion regarding the BFA establishment, organogram, film exchange procedures with foreign countries and machineries necessary for preservation.

The organogram the BFA proposed to the information ministry mentioned requirement of 125 people at the BFA, it now has 38. BFA sources said the current organogram has discrepancies in maintaining rank and reduces scope of promotion of employees lower in the pecking order.

The discrepancies caused BFA officials’ apathy and affected the preservation process severely, BFA sources said. In the current organogram, the BFA has a DG, a director and then five second-class officials.

As there is no post in between the director and second-class officials, promotion process remains halted, sources said.

The BFA proposed making the structure more balanced by having a DG, two directors, four deputy directors, eight assistant directors followed by second class officers. This would open up the scope for promotions of BFA officials.

INITIATION OF BFA
The BFA was established as Bangladesh Film Archive and Institution (BFAI) in 1978 after prominent Indian film personality Satish Bahadur submitted a proposal to the government on a structure of a film achieve.

Besides making the film archive an autonomous institution, the report titled “Structure of Bangladesh National Film Archive” suggested that laws like Film Destroy Law, Declaration of Film List Act, National Deposit Act be enacted and establishments like Chalachhitra Sangskritik Kendra, Chalachhitra Antorjatik Sangroho and Film Distribution Library be set up.

The BFAI became BFA during the regime of Ershad and made a part of the National Institute of Mass Communication.

“The National Institute of Mass Communication has been established mainly for electronic media. The structure of the institution relates to radio and television and it does not have the structure to deal with films,” said Mohammad Jahangir.

The BFA became a member of Federation of International Film Archives (FIAF) in 1980.

FILMS DESTROYED
Dhire Bohe Meghna, a film by prominent director and film activist Alamgir Kabir, can be taken as an example of how films are being destroyed due to lack of a policy.

In 1980, the film was shown across the country. The BFA could not decide whether it should collect and preserve the film when the director was alive. Later, the BFA collected a print of the film and it was so fragile that when the preservers started checking the film, it broke into pieces and Dhire Bohe Meghna is now lost.

BFA sources said prints of many films were destroyed in 1998 as those were kept in a BFA bathroom.

The BFA is yet to collect the print of Let Their be Light, a film by Zahir Raihan. The film is kept at Bangladesh Film Development Corporation (BFDC).

Filmmakers said the film is being projected by BFDC every now and then and they fear that the film may be lost just like Dhire Bohe Meghna if the BFA does not take immediate steps.

Filmmakers and BFA officials also said many films were also destroyed when political governments changed and the party in power tried to destroy films that go against their ideologies.

BFA sources said they have learned from former officials that many films and footages containing Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman were destroyed by military governments.

In a common trend of envy, a government comes to power and opposes decisions made by the previous government regarding the BFA.

“Due to the lack of policy, the BFA seems hanging in the air and different governments took different approaches regarding the BFA without considering the country’s interest. Earlier DG’s and ministry official had not done anything considering the interest of the BFA or the country,” said prominent filmmaker Morshedul Islam.

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