The edited picture negatives and sound negatives of the film which was made in black and white, and was the last moviee made by the renowned director, have gone missing from the state government-owned Chitranjali Studio in Thiruvananthapuram. A film is best preserved through negatives while in the case of print the quality deteriorates over time.
Incidentally, this is the 25th year since the release of the movie. One of John’s friends has a DVD copy of the movie. If other copies are available, it is not known. “We have a DVD copy but that is not very clear. If it is not properly preserved that will also fade out,” said Scaria Mathew, who was an active member of ‘Odessa Collective’, the group that produced the film.
Meanwhile an official in the lab, on condition of anonymity, said that the negatives were taken to AVM studio long back. “Somebody had taken the negatives to a lab in Chennai to take 60mm print from the negative since we did not have the facility here,” he said. The official was not sure whether the negatives were still in the possession of the lab in Chennai.
With the negatives missing, National Film Archive of India (NFAI)in Pune has started work to digitalize the movie from the 35mm print of the movie in their possession. The archives keeps a print of all movies selected for the Indian Panorama and John’s movie was also there. “It is really unfortunate. If they (Chitranjali Lab) did not have the facility to preserve the negatives they should have handed it over to the archives. If the negatives of the film is there anywhere in the world, please let me know. It should be brought to Pune Archives at any cost,” said P K Nair, film historian and founder director of NFAI.
Since its release, Amma Ariyan has attained cult status and been subjected to several scholarly studies owing to its uniqueness. The story, written by the director himself, is about the death of a young Naxalite and the journey of his friends to his village to inform the sad news to his mother. John shot many actual Leftist strikes that happened then time for his film. Odessa, a group of John’s friends, made the movie by collecting money from people by staging street plays and skits.
John Abraham, a native of Changanassery, scripted and directed four films – Vidyarthikale Ithile Ithile (72), Agraharathil Kazhuthai (Tamil, 77), Cheriyachante Krurakrithyangal (79) and Amma Ariyan (86).
Source: The Times Of India.
