While the world’s earliest films, from ‘Roundhay Garden Scene’ to ‘Charlie Chaplin’ classics still shine in crystal-clear prints even after a century, most old Bangladeshi films appear grainy, discoloured or poorly framed when shown on television or YouTube.
In some cases, even joint Bangladesh–India productions portray this contrast: the Indian versions look sharp, while the Bangladeshi prints remain faded and damaged.
So, why do our films look this way? TIMES of Bangladesh spoke to a number of producers, YouTube channel owners and film experts to find out the reason behind this ordeal.
Safi Uddin Safi, a key figure behind YouTube channel SIS Media, explained, “Years ago, producers sold their films to video companies for very little money. Those companies would often screen the movie in a cinema hall, record it with a video camera and then convert it into digital format. Because there was no proper system for digital conversion, the results were poor; that’s why so many old films now look blurry online or on TV.
In principle, a proper digital transfer from the original film print could have solved this. But as Tiger Media CEO Zahid Hasan Abhi noted, that required investment.“It would have cost around taka two to three lakh to convert each film to digital. Neither the producers nor the video companies were willing to spend that much. They also didn’t realise how valuable these films would become in the future,” he said.
“Most producers didn’t preserve the films properly after selling their TV, audio and video rights,” Abhi added. “Many prints were destroyed and even when they were later digitised, the results were poor.”
Film researcher Mir Shamsul Alam Babu outlined the technical side of the problem. “In the 35mm era, every film had an original copy called a negative,” he said.
“From that, several positive copies were made for cinema screenings. Each positive had a lifespan of about 50 runs, but they were often played hundreds of times, accumulating stains and scratches. Every conversion from negative to positive also reduced the resolution by about 60 per cent. So copies made from already worn-out positives looked terrible.”
He added that poor chemical processing also affected print quality, “One of the chemicals used to wash the rush prints after shooting on 35mm was sodium thiosulphate. It could be bought cheaply or at a higher price, say Tk 200 or Tk 2,500 per kilo. The cheaper version never produced the same quality. That too contributed to poor film prints.”
Babu noted that the Bangladesh Film Archive has successfully digitised many high-quality film prints, but producers and video companies rarely take advantage of it. Showing a comparison, he played a clip of a song from ‘Mukh O Mukhosh’; the YouTube version was faded and pink, while his own copy was sharp and clear.
“I even contacted the YouTube channel owner,” he said. “I offered to give them my better copy for free, asking them to replace the blurry version. But they refused, worried that re-uploading would cost them their existing views.”
Babu believes the solution lies in proper use of national resources, “The Bangladesh Film Archive now has advanced equipment worth around Tk 20 crore for preservation and digital conversion,” he explained. “Although they don’t convert films on request, if a producer donates a copy of their film to the Archive, the institution will make a free digital version and hand it over. Producers don’t have to pay anything, yet most aren’t taking advantage of this opportunity.”
