U.P’s first film museum to come up in heart of Sangam city

Sangam city will now have one more destination to attract tourists and movie buffs alike.

Under the Prayagraj Smart City Mission, plans are afoot to develop age-old film centre located near CAV Inter college in Civil Lines area of the city into a film museum.

The rich legacy of the film history of North India will be showcased here.

To note, the dilapidated centre which was once part of education extension department and was proposed to be auctioned a few years ago, would now be converted into a ‘film museum’—the first of its kind in Uttar Pradesh.

An amount of around ₹4 crore will be spent on the project, said officials.

The Smart City authorities would be taking the help of Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) for making this closed centre a museum.

The centre was established in 1938 to make educational films during the British rule and was the only film centre in North India at the time.

Mission manager (technical) of Prayagraj Smart City Limited, Sanjeev Sinha said, “After reading the history of the movie centre, it was found that the projector and sound system here was better than the cinema halls of Mumbai. Projectors were taken from the centre in buses to show films in schools and other places and big stalwarts of the cinema world used to come to the cinema hall to give lectures to the students of cinema”. After converting it as the film museum of North India, it will be the centre of attraction for the tourists as well, he added.

In its hey days, the centre used to make short films to propagate education and as such it had the best cameras, high quality trolleys, cranes, and recording equipment of those times. But unfortunately, since 1990, the process for making educational films was discontinued and all the equipment has been placed under lock since 1990.

The centre had made films on Maithilisharan Gupta, Sumitranandan Pant, Mahadevi Varma, Acharya Mahavir Prasad etc. Also, films were made on biographies of Mahatma Gandhi, former President Rajendra Prasad, former Vice President Dr Radhakrishnan, former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Madanmohan Malaviya etc.

After the independence of the country, it operated under the department of education extension. The centre has made more than 500 films. A 35-millimeter reel film was made and converted into 16 millimeters and displayed in rural areas and schools with a projector.

The former employees of the institute are also happy about the decision. “I always wanted that instead of auctioning the equipment (as was proposed by the government few years ago), the centre should be developed as a training institute for the young talent of the state which moves to Mumbai or make it a museum,” said Ramchandra Patel, an octogenarian who was the sound engineer at the centre.

Patel said the equipment used by the centre includes a 35mm Michiel movie camera (US), 35mm Arri movie camera (German), 35mm IMO movie camera (Britain, works on key), 35mm Kovac movie camera (Russian), studio lights (from 500 watt to 5,000 watt) and a soundproof studio.

“The centre’s sound section has a 35mm Reeves optical film sound recording machine, 7.5mm. Klang film magnetic sound recording machine, 35mm Sylson sound head, and a preview hall,” he added.