Osian's Auction Catalogue Celebrating Cinematic Heritage | June 2018

6 Osian’s in Association with IIFA Helping to nurture a sensitive and bold cinematic culture is a critical part of building a meaningful and effective cultural infrastructure and public atmosphere, where the human aspires to be their very best version. In a place such as India, where the passion for cinema is clear, we have failed to create such a fearless cinematic culture. Though it is a diverse cinema, with nuggets of great aesthetic and entertainment quality, the cultural infrastructure required to support Indian cinema and the other arts is deeply lacking. We are not building the support systems and other interactive frameworks, which can allow cinema to inspire and help integrate other cultural disciplines, so uniting the family of creative values, hence building an atmosphere which privileges the values of a creative life, and so in turn inspiring society upon a path of values more honest, free and liberating for the human being. Apart from entertaining the public, creating a celebrity culture and attaining box office success as an industry, cinema has many other critical roles to fulfill. The archival and educational role for cinema is the most important along with integrating other cultural disciplines, so that the public sees and believes there is a living alternative value system, beyond the economic and religious. From living this belief emerges that sensitivity which makes a society bold, courageous and respectful of learning and creativity. Since the 1950s when the belief in the power and influence of cinema was deepest and idealistic, India has always been at the cusp of realizing this potential. As with all other aspects of our society, we have failed to fully realize that potential. Yet there is always hope and the chance to radically change the path. Once again, it feels that Indian cinema is capable of playing this leadership role, despite the moments of collective fear, the onslaught of new technologies and modes of entertainment, it is clear to all, that cinema can once again inspire a cultural renaissance. This will be dependent on the mindset the film fan, intelligentsia and film fraternity bring to the task at hand. Building top quality museums, archives, libraries, research and educational institutions is one essential need, which in turn requires a love, knowledge and respect for all the small tiny objects and artifacts which create and recreate the world of cinema, from the fragile paper based handbills, heralds, song-synopsis booklets, press-books, photographic stills, posters to the delicate glass slides, scripts, props, costumes, cameras, let alone the films in all formats. These objects of history need our love, care and expertise, so that they can come back to life, resuscitate the energy that once helped create cinematic magic. Preserving and nurturing them is pivotal, especially in incorporating them into the myriad educational courses being taught across the globe, in a hundred subjects frommedia studies to South East Asian studies, gender, cultural, aesthetic, film studies, and the like, influencing every branch of the humanities and arts. This is the time for resurgence, rebuilding, inculcating a new idealism and belief in the vast inspirational force that cinema carries within itself. After 25 years of work, I finally hope that opening the Osianama Research Center, Archive and Library for World Cinema and the Arts will help take forward this journey in some meaningful way. Osian’s and I are grateful to IIFA and its wonderful global platform in helping us take forward this message and the precious cause of preserving and nurturing our cinematic culture and heritage, and truly hope that the film fraternity recognizes more and more their pivotal off-screen role in this shared journey. Once again it is time for sensitivity and sustained action… Neville Tuli