South Asian Cinema Foundation (SACF), a city-based organisation has received the Frederick Pincott Award for 2017 from the Indian High Commissioner, Y K Sinha for promoting Hindi cinema in Britain for the last 18 years.
The institution has been active in boosting original research and books on Indian films, also inviting and honouring filmmakers from India, along with documentary filmmaking and producing classic silent films with live music at the British Film Institute (BFI).
Speaking on the occasion, the Minister for Coordination in the High Commission, A S Rajan said that the SACF has been doing commendable work for nearly two decades to promote Hindi and regional Indian cinema in the UK and as a result has served the cause of dissemination of the Hindi language.
It was inspiring to see Lalit Mohan Joshi's recent production of Dadasaheb Phalke's "Raja Harishchandra" with live music at the British Film Institute (BFI), Rajan added.
SACF director Lalit Mohan Joshi said the institution will continue exploring Hindi cinema as it would launch a new six-week course at the BFI that will look into the history of Indian cinema through literature.
"The course will look into the making of iconic films in each decade, like 'Devdas' (1930s, 1950s and 2000s), 'Chitralekha' (1941 and 1964), 'Teesri Kasam' (1965), 'Guide' (1965), 'Umrao Jaan' (1981), 'Pinjar' (2003), 'Omkara' (2006) and 'Padmaavat' (2018)," Joshi said.
The SACF was set up in London in January 2000 by Joshi, along with film archivist P K Nair, film critic Derek Malcolm and social historian-researcher Kusum Pant Joshi.
Besides honouring legendary filmmakers such as Shyam Benegal, Gulzar, M S Sathyu, Saeed Akhtar Mirza, Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Vishal Bharadwaj, the SACF has also taken lead in pioneering research by unearthing the contribution of Niranjan Pal in Indian cinema. They have also published books on Pal, Gopalakrishnan, including "A Biographical Dictionary of Indo-British Cinema".
SACF's documentaries - "Beyond Partition", "Niranjan Pal" and "Indo-British Cinematic Encounters" have been screened at the BFI and other film festivals.
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