Acclaimed director Christopher Nolan and visual artist Tacita Dean will headline the event Reframing the Future of Film, organised by the Film Heritage Foundation, in Mumbai on March 31 and April 1, the foundation announced on Friday. The event aims to highlight the necessity of preserving photochemical film in the digital age, and will include a private roundtable discussion and a separate public event.
Reframing the Future of Film began as a discussion among prominent personalities in cinema and art in 2015 at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. It has also been held in Tate Modern during the London Film Festival and at Museo Tamayo in Mexico City. The event aims to enumerate “the tangible steps that needed to be taken to protect the medium of film and its legacy in order to reposition its importance in an aggressive digital market”, according to the press release.
Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, founding director of Film Heritage Foundation, said in the press release that the aims of the event resonate with those of the foundation. “Since our inception, we have been speaking for film as a shooting, exhibition and archival medium,” Dungarpur stated. “We have been fighting a losing battle and we finally have the support from two of the leading film exponents in the world.”
Nolan is famous for using celluloid along with digital formats for his movies. His latest production Dunkirk (2017), depicting the Dunkirk evacuation during World War II, was also shot on large format film.
Dean’s work will be presented at the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, and Royal Academy of Arts in the United Kingdom this year. She has been a passionate advocate for the use of celluloid.
“Tacita and I are delighted to join with Shivendra and the Film Heritage Foundation in presenting Refraining the Future of Film in Mumbai,” Nolan said in a statement. “India has such wonderful cinema and such a rich history of art that everything needs to be done not only encourage its proper preservation for future generations but also to re-introduce the film medium to the younger artists and filmmakers in the country.”
The event marks Nolan’s first visit to India after shooting in Jodhpur in Rajasthan for The Dark Knight Rises (2012), the final movie in his Batman trilogy.