Prasad Corp’s 600th restored classic film ‘Thamp’ to be premiered at Cannes

May 09, 2022 (India) – Prasad Corp, a global pioneer in film preservation, digitization and restoration is proud to have been instrumental in taking THAMP to the prestigious Cannes ’22. THAMP a classic gem by G Aravindan is one of the 600+ Hollywood and Indian classic films restored to date.

The restoration journey of ‘THAMP’
Prasad Corp has been preserving and restoring classic films across the globe with its proprietary technology, and by leveraging the expertise of its 400+ restoration artists. It has the largest restoration facility in the world and partners with brands like Zee, BBC, Sony Pictures, Disney, and Warner Bros.

THAMP (The Circus Tent), a Black and White movie released in 1978 is a remarkable film that transports viewers to the life of a village that re-discovers itself through a roving circus troupe that sets up a 3-day camp there.

Thamp’s journey to Cannes was not an easy one. It was made possible only by the joint efforts of the Film Heritage Foundation and Prasad Corp. Film Heritage Foundation identified THAMP as the movie to be restored and Prasad Corp restored the film to its former glory.

The only available film elements of THAMP were a Dupe Negative made from a print and a heavily used theatrical copy received from the NFAI, Pune which were not in a good condition. The Negatives had a lot of heavy dust and dirt, scratches, image warping, flicker, color breathing, and stabilization.

To start with, the elements were put through an Ultrasonic cleaning before they could be taken up for digitization. As required, both the Combined Dupes and the Print were scanned on the DFT’s film scanner – Scanity at 4K resolution in 16 bit with the image area exposed to the maximum aspect ratio, so as to be able to take up the stabilization of the image better during Restoration work. As is done for the digital restoration for all restoration projects, the stabilisation and de-flickering, and elimination of scratches and dirt without touching the film grain were taken up without aggressive grain manipulation, preferring to only attenuate and not eliminate the scratches in case they are too invasive. The grading has been supervised by the DOP of the film Mr. Shaji Karun and G. Aravindan’s Son Ramu Aravindan at the studios of Immagine Ritrovata in Bologna, who have been a part of the Restoration of World Cinema in the past decade or so.

If not for the restoration, this historical and cultural gem could have been perpetually lost to the world.

Sai Prasad, Director of Prasad Corp commented "Prasad Corp’s mission is to support and enable global archives and libraries to protect and preserve their valuable content and to serve the Entertainment Industry with its ever-changing needs. This mission and passion have been passed down successfully to four generations of the Prasad Family who have been ardently committed to the mission. Over the years Prasad has kept in step with the rapid advancement of technology and harnessed its potential towards our preservation philosophy of ‘Preserving for Posterity’.

We are very pleased for Prasad to be able to work alongside Martin Scorcese's Film Foundation and Shivendra's Film Heritage Foundation to achieve a world-class restoration of Aravindan Govindan’s “Thamp”, a film that is a gem of our cinematic history. We hope this collaboration will lead to many more such restorations of Indian classics so that the world can see the richness and beauty of our film heritage. We are proud of our people, our technology, and our R&D teams that are all deeply engaged in delivering on our Preservation and restoration mission.”

About Prasad Corp
Prasad Corp offers a comprehensive range of preservation, digitization and restoration services globally. As the proud owner of Digital Film Technology GmbH, manufacturers of Motion Picture Film Scanners, Prasad is uniquely positioned to offer convenient, strategic and wholesome preservation services to its customers both onsite and offsite. Its preservation centres are located worldwide including, Japan, India, UK, Europe and the USA and also offer preservation on-demand services to suit the needs of its customers anywhere in the world.
For more visit – www.prasadcorp.com

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