PANAJI: Film preservationist Tessa Idlewine, who has worked on restoring 21 of Satyajit Ray’s classics including the Apu trilogy, says it is “heartbreaking” to see reels of iconic films in deplorable condition.

Tessa, who is a preservationist at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (AMPSS, said they aim to preserve all of Ray’s 37 films.

“We have had a few years break from working on it. The last one we finished was in 2012, but we have not forgotten about Ray. It is our goal to finish them. We will never forget him,” said Tessa. The Academy began the Ray Preservation Project after he was awarded an Honorary Academy Award in 1992. Unfortunately, in July 1993, a fire broke out at Hendersons Film Laboratories in South London in 1993, which damaged many of the Ray films that had just arrived from India and were on their way to being preserved in Los Angeles. The Academy along with the Criterion Collection and L’Immagine Ritrovata in Bologna, Italy, spearheaded the restoration of Ray’s Apu trilogy, comprising “Pather Panchali” (1955), “Aparajito” (1956) and “Apur Sansar” (1959). “It took us three years from when Criterion got involved. If you think of it in terms of the very beginning, it took us over 20 years since the negatives were burnt and the Academy took over,” Tessa told PTI. “Preservation takes a long tome. It was thousands of hours of labour. It’s a very time consuming process.” Tessa, who was speaking at an event on the sidelines of International Film Festival of India (IFFI), said some films were so badly damaged there was hardly any footage left. “It was so heartbreaking. It still smells of fire. There is barely any footage left in the cans. Despite knowing that we have saved them, it is truly heartbreaking. To see them in such a terrible shape is sad. “Thankfully, we were able to save that. But it took us 20 years and immense amount of money, three different organisations working together to pay for it.” –PTI