Mahesh Babu's 'Athadu' and Aamir Khan's '3 Idiots' Among Titles To Be Restored By Prasad Corp
The firm has also reportedly completed restoration work on Hollywood titles such as 'My Fair Lady' and 'West Side Story'.
According to a report by Variety, Prasad Corp, the Chennai-based post-production company, has recently completed 8K restorations of a line of Indian titles, including a catalogue from Vidhu Vinod Chopra Productions such as 3 Idiots (2009), Munnabhai MBBS (2003), Lage Raho Munnabhai (2006), 1942: A Love Story (1994), and Mission Kashmir (2000), along with Mahesh Babu's hit Telugu film Athadu (2005). The firm has also completed restoration work on Hollywood titles such as My Fair Lady (1964) and West Side Story (1961).
In an interview with the publication, Abhishek Prasad, the director and CTO of the company, explained that the 8K process involved "frame-by-frame repair, careful preservation of the film’s natural grain structure." Prasad also added that preserving these films ensured they remained visually relevant for decades, "whether they are screened in theatres, streamed globally, or archived for future formats that may emerge.” Restoration of such films also enables one to connect classic films to the global digital distribution ecosystem of today, he noted.
In an earlier interview with The Hollywood Reporter India, Kunal Kapoor, nephew of Raj Kapoor, spoke about why restoration is a deeply creative process. Kapoor oversaw the 4K restoration of Raj Kapoor’s iconic film Awara (1961), spearheaded by the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) and the National Film Archive of India (NFAI). This restoration was part of the National Film Heritage Mission (NFHM) launched in 2015 — a ₹ 597 crore project funded by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, to digitise and preserve film archives. "It is a creative process, but the creative input is very difficult to describe. It is what you think is right, and that has a lot to do with your exposure, your experience, your background.” Besides, preservation is not in our psyche, he added. "We are very good at rewriting history. But our preservation — whether our monuments or our history — is so poor.”