Restoration

Restoration as collaboration

A conversation between Deepa Dhanraj and Markus Ruff, with Nicole Wolf

Nicole: The Yugantar films arrived in the Arsenal archive through my prior connection with the Arsenal. I was invited to be a participant of the Arsenal’s “Living Archive” project and through that a possibility arose to finally see and maybe make available again those films that I had wanted to see for many years. I already experienced Deepa bringing all available film material to London and allowing me to take it to Berlin as a huge gesture of trust. I think the weight of the film copies made itself felt as absolute excitement and immense responsibility. I had the knowledge of the political history of the Arsenal and its archive filled with markers of radical film history and trusted that the films would be acknowledged for what they were and that future relations with filmmakers would be on respectful terms. At the same time, I was aware of the politics of activist films from India entering a German institution which would provide the financial base and the technical Know-How to restore and digitize them, with me being a white European facilitator of this process as well as a researcher on the project, and a possibility of the films ultimately becoming part of the archive. I knew absolutely nothing about digital restoration before this project and while I was not involved in many aspects of the process, I learned a lot and I realized the significance that small decisions within e.g. the color grading process can have in the context of broader conceptual questions. I did feel I saw the films anew once they were digitized, with significant details becoming more visible and audible.
 
How would you both describe your approach for entering this specific project? What for you were significant moments or experiences for this process to work well, mostly across distance, during the course of ten years, with Deepa only present in Berlin for two weeks during one summer? What was important in terms of how communication took place between different sides? When did this process feel like a collaboration and when possibly not and why? Can you articulate what your understanding of trust in this process was? 
 
Markus: First, I'd like to briefly address two points you made: the financial aspect and the expertise. The latter absolutely exists in India—or especially in India— in the field of digital restoration. For example, for the restoration of GHASHIRAM KOTWAL (Yukt Film Cooperative, Mani Kaul) we worked together with one facility in India. The question remains who can—or cannot—afford it. The financing of a digitization or digital restoration (incidentally also the storage of film material) is of course also a big challenge in Germany, independent of the country the films are produced in. Yet, it becomes even more tricky once you deal with a so called foreign production. – The logic of German cultural funding along the lines of heritage, i.e. national heritage, would take the conversation in a different direction.— The fact here is that the films found their way into Arsenal’s archive (until the Yugantar collective decides otherwise) and that we were able to undertake the digital restoration. And in such constellation the aspect of power relations that you mentioned before is crucial and must be constantly reflected on, on institutional as well as on a personal level.
I have been working at the Arsenal archive since 2011, thus "Living Archive" was more or less the project through which I was getting involved with digitization projects. It was in this context, so at the very beginning of me entering this particular field, that we met and we have worked together ever since, always focusing on the restoration of all five films [the first title was KYA HUA IS SHAHAR KO? directed by Deepa]. Such a long collaboration connects, and for me I can say that personal relationships are an essential aspect in my work. Today I can't remember our first meeting at the Arsenal and the suitcase full of film reels—not to speak of what went through my mind. However, in connection with other projects where filmmakers entrust the Arsenal with their films and the digitization, this situation repeats in a way, and I am aware that it goes hand in hand with a great deal of trust. Sometimes they don't know the institution beforehand, or not very well, and we meet for the first time, or the films are handed over to us by a third person, as in this case by Nicole. At this point I wonder what creates the trust, especially since there is no physical proximity, and in this sense no immediate access to the material for the filmmakers.
 
Deepa: It is very hard for a filmmaker to have your films disappear. Films go missing not because they are misplaced or stolen but because they simply wear themselves out. Film prints disintegrate after multiple screenings and cannot be projected any more. They begin to exist as images in memory and can only be brought to life by “talking” the film, describing sequence by sequence so that the listener can “see” the film. When Nicole asked me about the missing films both Kya Hua Is Shahar Ko? and the Yugantar films this is how I described them, like a script narration. Then it didn’t seem likely that they could be seen again as a film ought to be. So when the news came that Arsenal could take on the restoration, initially of Kya Hua is Shahar Ko?, for me it was an incredibly exciting moment. 
 
I had no idea what was involved in a restoration process, especially when we had to work with a damaged negative and reconstruct the soundtrack from a mix of an optical track and magnetic tapes. Markus was working with the Arri lab and had to explain why certain sections looked the way they did because of the vinegar syndrome. Discussions as to whether something should be retouched in the digital restoration process or just left as it was bearing the marks of time brought into focus questions of authenticity, historical fidelity and archival process. These had to be negotiated.
 
It was a steep learning curve and I think even though it was a long distance process we managed to communicate across countries and time zones. Building trust for me was achieved in the process of working together, on every aspect, the image quality, construction of the sound track, the new subtitles and I have to thank you Markus for your meticulousness and attention to detail and patience in answering all my questions! I suppose for you too it was about understanding what my expectations were, thank you for reminding me of what was realistically possible!
 
Markus: When the filmmaker is involved in the restoration process, there is the need to clearly communicate the approach. This may contradict with the director’s intention in the first place, and somehow it’s in the nature of things. However, the discussion about the details—even if it may get nerdy sometimes—is usually productive. It’s a dialogue of sharing perspectives from different backgrounds, all in favor of the film and how we preserve the film best in a truthful way for current and future generations. I like this process very much, and nothing is more satisfying for me than a satisfied filmmaker. I think that we have achieved that together.
 
Deepa: Watching the final version on a big screen for the first time after so many years was a very emotional moment that I will never forget. After the Kya Hua is Shahar ko? restoration I think we had established a very easy and comfortable working relationship, so the Yugantar films were very easy to do.
 
Markus: Yes, with this first project we established a comfortable way of working together, and you already had a clearer idea of our approach—not only in technical terms regarding the restoration, but also the curatorial practice. However, the Yugantar films had their own challenges, different ones from Kya Hua is Shahar ko, so we kept on “negotiating” details. Each film is different in a way and poses new questions and challenges in the process.
 
Nicole: Reading your reflections I am reminded on the one hand that this collaboration started with locating Kya Hua is Shahar ko? in the Arsenal archive. When I searched earlier for a copy of Kya Hua is Shahar ko? it never occurred to me that the film print would be here in Berlin, but while researching for a film series curated on the basis of the Arsenal’s collection of Indian films Kya Hua I Shahar ko? showed up. You both stress that working on this film together first was crucial to create a certain basis of trust and I wonder if maybe also just the fact that the Arsenal had once screened a film that the Indian Embassy would rather not have shown internationally and preserved it mattered, and that everyone recognized that this was an important political film to make available again.
 
The other aspect is maybe also your understanding and experience Markus of working on other films from the Indian context and with Indian film labs.
And it strikes me that you both accentuate the personal and working out an appropriate decision making process for each individual film together, rather than coming with a preset idea of what digital restoration must do and what the end results should be. This impression I get from your description which lets the institution and what is structurally determined fade a bit in the background, though it never vanishes.
And as you say Markus, the collective could decide any day to take the prints out of the archive and there was a common agreement that the online versions of the films should be available for free online for audiences in India and on request from other regions outside Europe and North America.
 
Markus: Making films accessible online is complex. On which platform and in which territory a film can be made accessible remains a case-by-case decision dependent on legal issues. In the case of the Yugantar films, we discussed and weight up together what is possible and how. The starting point for the digitization of these films was always in the foreground: making them accessible to workers and unions in India, and that they can be shown without restriction in different contexts. That was the intention with which the films were produced, and nowadays that can be achieved in the digital in a different way. Making the films freely accessible online in India was the expressed wish of the collective, and it would be absurd for an institution to oppose the original intention—at least once you engage in such a project. I think that in this specific case we have found fitting solutions for different contexts.
 
Regarding the approach to digitization I must add: when we speak of a (digital) restoration, there are definitely interventions that are not possible. Otherwise, the final product would "simply" have to be called something else but not a restoration. As a film institution with a film educational mission (Filmvermittlungsauftrag), however, we do not intent to falsify films in the digital processing, i.e. producing a digital copy in which the production history of a film is no longer recognizable. Especially in the case of the Yugantar films, this is exemplary: TAMBAKU, for example, shows that strikes took place in the 1980s and that the women workers were able to obtain better conditions back then, something that is unknown to the workers today. If the film now pretended to have been shot yesterday, I think it would lose its authenticity and power for audiences today. Nevertheless, I recognize that the film is the work of a person or persons with an aesthetic aspiration, and this I do not leave out of view where possible and justifiable.
 
Deepa: The restoration process continued over a ten-year period, it is remarkable that we were able to give the same level of attention and care to each film. I felt we all had the same sense of investment in this project. Finally, I want to say that at the end of this journey the friendship is special and will endure.