National Film Archives: Policies, Practices, and Histories A Study of the National Film Archive of India, EYE Film Institute Netherlands, and the National Film and Sound Archive, Australia by Ramesh Kumar A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Cinema Studies New York University September, 2016 ________________ Dan Streible ProQuest Number: 10192121 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. ProQuest 10192121 Published by ProQuest LLC ( 2016 ). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, MI 48106 - 1346 © Ramesh Kumar All Rights Reserved, 2016 DEDICATION For Lakshmi G. and Lakshmi B., who made this possible. And for all the archivists who work hard to preserve the films we write about. You rock! iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This PhD project was a collaborative effort that involved the energies of dozens of scholars, film archivists, and allied stakeholders from across four different continents, without whom it could not have been completed successfully. It began while working with Associate Professor Dan Streible on producing the Orphan Film Symposium at New York University (NYU) in 2010, although the germ of a vague idea predated my arrival at NYU as a graduate student. My heartfelt thanks to Dan for being the best advisor my project could have hoped for. Be it his accessibility, his hands-off approach and confidence in my abilities (especially in times when I doubted myself), or his critical interventions whenever needed, it was his guidance and support that allowed me to give this dissertation it current shape. Professor Richard Allen from NYU was the first in encouraging me to pursue this project further, and also in facilitating my first few exploratory forays into the terrain. Professor Ira Bhaskar from Jawaharlal Nehru University, responsible for shaping my life in more ways than her modesty allows her to admit, helped me decide to finally take the plunge. They also served on my dissertation committee, as did Professor Robert Stam from NYU who helped me when I needed it the most, providing me with valuable feedback as well as continued guidance. Professor Julia Noordegraaf from the University of Amsterdam (UvA), who also served on my dissertation committee, advised me throughout, and especially during my research stay in Amsterdam. Additionally, she made it possible for me to spend time as a visiting researcher at the Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis at UvA, and as an intern at the EYE Film Institute Netherlands (EYE). Professor Gino Moliterno and Professor Roger Hillman, from the Australian National University (ANU), similarly enabled me to spend time at the ANU School of Cultural Inquiry. My conversations with various members of the international film archiving community, especially Paolo Cherchi Usai, Howard Besser, Karl Griep, Nico de Klerk, Martin Koerber, and iv Rod Butler helped give shape to this project when it was still in its formative stages, and also assisted me in working out the logistics for completing it successfully. My interactions with graduate students of NYU’s Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program reaffirmed my faith in the project, especially Bono Olgado who continues to inspire me while being unaware of it, and Andy Uhrich whose words of encouragement meant more to me than he realized. Colleagues from my PhD cohort, especially Priyanjali Sen and Hadi Gharabaghi, who allowed me to brainstorm with them to refine the project, also pushed me towards completing it successfully. I wish to thank them all. In India, this project benefitted from the support extended by various employees of the National Film Archive of India, especially Vijay Jadhav, Prashant Pathrabe, Arti Karkhanis, Kiran Dhiwar, and Urmila Joshi, who opened the doors for me to access the institution’s internal documents, pointed me to long forgotten publications, and facilitated my research. And it was completed with the co-operation of my interviewees P.K. Nair, K. L. Khandpur, Suresh Chabria, K. S. Sasidharan, Vijaya Mulay, Gayatri Chatterjee, Haimanti Banerjee, Satish Jakatdar, Anil Zankar, and Sanjit Narvekar, who not only spared their time and patiently answered my questions, but were also generous in trusting me with their often personal accounts. Additionally, Shivendra Singh Dungarpur kept me inspired throughout my work. Abhija Ghosh introduced me to literature on the history of film clubs and the film appreciation movement in the nation. And various other unnamed employees at the National Archives and other similar institutions I visited contributed by going beyond their official duties in fulfilling my requests for information. On the personal front, Reena Kapoor-Talwar, Priya M. Lal, Bindu Menon, Sreedeep Bhattacharya, Aastha Gandhi, and Nitin Mahajan helped me by being dependable friends who were there when needed, and my family supported me despite the troubled times they faced. In the Netherlands, Giovanna Fossati enabled this project to make headway at EYE by becoming my mentor, friend, and best boss ever. Along with Anne Gant, Frank Roumen, v and EYE’s many other employees, she made me feel at home in an alien environment, allowed me unbridled access to the institution’s internal documents, and arranged for me to meet various stakeholders. My interviewees Sandra den Hamer, Hoos Blotkamp, Peter Delpeut, Ruud Visschedijk, Sijbolt Noorda, and Maarten Mulder surprised me with their non- hierarchical dealings with me, their forthright answers to my questions, as well as critical insights into the contexts of their work. Christian Gosvig Olessen, fellow student at UvA, provided me with office space when I had none, and hours of friendly conversations that were welcome distractions from my work. And Dos Elshout helped by pointing me to literature on Dutch cultural policy. In Australia, employees of the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) helped facilitate my research, in particular Jenny Gall, Heather Gill, and Brownyn Coupe, among others. My interviewees Ray Edmondson, Michael Loebenstein, Meg Labrum, Jim Berg, Hart Cohen, Ian Dunlop, Tom Eccles, Brett Galt-Smith, Grace Koch, David MacDougall, Mary Miliano, Andrew Pike, Sue Davenport, and Peter White enabled me to understand the intricacies of the NFSA’s workings. Adam Broinowski, fellow scholar in residence at the NFSA, provided me with both academic advice and personal support, while my housemate Bin Zhang relieved my stress through his wonderful musing about life. In Brussels, this project received generous support from FIAF’s Chief Administrator Christophe Dupin. And in New York, it was helped by the administrative support provided by Ken Sweeney, Melanie Daly, Liza Greenfield, Jeff Richardson, and Cathy Holter. This project owes it to the collective efforts of all of them. And it was made possible through the Corrigan Fellowship, the Engberg Research Fellowship, and travel grants from the Graduate School of Arts and Science at NYU, Council for Media and Culture Dissertation and Thesis Grant from NYU, and Research Grant from the John Anson Kittredge Educational Fund. It was produced, in part, as part of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia Scholars and Artists in Residence Research Fellowship Program. My sincere thanks to these organizations and institutions. vi ABSTRACT This dissertation is a transnational study of national film archives, which explores how the idea of a national film archive manifests itself differently in three dissimilar national contexts. It narrates the critical cultural histories of three bricks-and-mortar institutions -- the NFAI in Pune, India, the Nederlands Filmmuseum (Netherlands Film Museum, or NFM), now rebranded as EYE Film Instituut Nederland (EYE Film Institute Netherlands, or EYE), and the National Film and Sound Archive in Canberra, Australia (NFSA) -- with a focus on the history of Indigenous cultural and intellectual property (ICIP) material in the case of NFSA. It combines empirical examinations of the three institutions with the conceptual underpinnings of their policies and practices over time, analyzing them as the loci of complex negotiations between various social, political, and ideological forces to produce holistic historical narratives of their rich cultural lives. To achieve this, it uses the transnational nature of national film archives as a structuring device -- while treating institutional histories as palimpsests -- and mobilizing other such sensitizing concepts as bureaucracy in India, the emergence of cultural clusters in the Netherlands, and multiculturalism in Australia, so as to make meaning of various local iterations of the global idea of a national film archive. In the process, it hopes to make a significant contribution to cinema studies by reorienting the discipline’s attention from analyzing cinema as a cultural institution to investigating the cultural institutions of cinema. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iv ABSTRACT vii LIST OF TABLES xii LIST OF APPENDICES xiii SECTION I: INTRODUCTION