By: Mohnish Singh
The coronavirus pandemic has given each one of us enough time to pause, contemplate and prioritise things that matter. For Telugu superstar Nagarjuna also, priorities have changed drastically over the course of the past 15 months. Today, preserving Telugu cinema for posterity holds more importance for him than box-office figures.
Talking to an Indian daily, the superstar says that it is his dream to build a museum for Telugu cinema. “It is my dream to build a museum for Telugu cinema. When we hosted a film preservation and restoration workshop at my studio in 2019, I was amazed at the technology available at our disposal. I thought why not gather all our Telugu classics and build a museum for Telugu cinema?”
He goes on to add that he is in constant touch with film archivists from all over the country to make this happen. “I have been in constant touch with film archivists from all over the country to make this happen. Unfortunately, the Covid-19 pandemic has delayed this project but the process of collecting items for the museum is still underway,” he adds.
“Cinema is an art, and movies deserve to be preserved like art forms at libraries and museums all over the world. The Telugu film industry has such a rich history. My father (Akkineni Nageswara Rao) started from silent days, back when there were no dialogues in films. So, from then to now, cinema has evolved so much. We have all these resources today. We must give something back to cinema. A museum for Telugu cinema would be a perfect ode to an industry that has given us so much joy,” he states further.
Nagarjuna reveals what inspired him to build a museum for Telugu cinema. “Do you see youngsters today referring to books when they want to know about something? I don’t! For instance, if they want to learn about WWII, they do not go refer to history books. They simply look up a video on it online and watch it. So, we must use the technology at our disposal to present our films in a way that youngsters can easily refer to them. The idea is to show how cinema has evolved over time,” he concludes.
