Films are an important part of Calcutta?s self-image as a city of distinction. There are the film buffs, the Festival, Nandan and a state government long known to have its own stakes in ?art cinema?. And there is Satyajit Ray. His first, and perhaps greatest, film could not have been made without the state government?s intervention ? or so the legend goes. Yet the painstaking archival and restoration work with Ray?s films has been done almost entirely abroad, like the best critical writing on him. Unqualified adulation and worshipful derivativeness are the only tributes that Calcutta has managed to pay him. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that the city will not be able to screen the films of Ray which have been restored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. None of the halls in which the films were supposed to be screened is technologically equipped to do so. Hence, the Academy has not permitted their screening. Two of the private halls use a form of projection that damages negatives. This is not the problem at Nandan, which, however, happens to be seriously underlit. The illumination level is 50 per cent, which is far below the Academy?s standards.

This is doubly unfortunate. Yet again, Calcutta has fallen by the wayside, and has forfeited its right to be taken seriously in terms of international norms and standards. But what is perhaps more unfortunate is the Nandan director?s knee-jerk defensiveness. He has commented that Nandan has been holding ?international film festivals? for a long time and no one has ever said that its lighting quality is bad. This is typical. And this is precisely the attitude which keeps Calcutta where it is in relation to the rest of the contemporary world. One of the private halls is reluctant to spend on updating its technology for only a week?s screening ? the expenses would have come to only a lakh. Another typical attitude, essentially inimical to enterprise and change. The government, particularly under the leadership of an culturally inclined chief minister, would do well to take note of this. Given its many quixotic plans, from spectacular public toilets to car-racing stadiums and ayurvedic parks, it might be an idea to update its film-projection technology at Nandan. There is mayhem in the Tagore archives, as recently discovered. Calcutta?s other icon might be saved from similar ignominy.