2013 will the the centenary year of the Indian film industry and by this time, the government hopes to have completed work on the country’s first film museum, said Ambika Soni, Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting.
The first ever National Museum of Indian Cinema is being built in Mumbai and will host a display of the evolution of Indian cinema. Soni says that she hopes it will be ready for inauguration in 2013 and describes it as a “window to India’s ever-expanding soft power, cinema.”
“The centenary celebrations would provide the country an excellent opportunity to exhibit India’s soft power on global scale and reinforce the idea of Cinemas of India along with the Incredible India campaign,” says Soni.
She goes on to say, “The greatest benefit of the mission would be t enable the preservation of the invaluable filmic heritage of the country which is an integral part of our socio-cultural heritage. Three thousand films will be acquired and digitised and 3,000 films will be restored and transferred to inter-negatives under the scheme and will be available at affordable rates as DVDs to public for viewing.”
