Olympics in Reel Life will celebrate, through rare films and photographs, ultimate achievements by exemplary athletes and memorable moments that have been part of the Olympic history for more than a century.
By Shivendra Singh Dungarpur
In India, the word “Olympics” immediately calls to mind a montage of memories of the great sportspeople who have made our country proud at the Games—India’s hockey team that won eight gold medals from 1928 to 1980; K.D. Jadhav, the wrestler who won a bronze at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics and became India’s first individual medal winner; the heartbreak of Milkha Singh who missed a bronze by a whisker in the 400-metre sprint in Rome in 1960 or ‘the Payyoli Express’, P.T. Usha, who lost the bronze in Los Angeles in 1984 by 1/100th of a second; the shooter Abhinav Bindra who brought us India’s first individual Olympic gold medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics; weightlifter Karnam Malleswari, whose bronze at the 2000 Sydney Games made her the first Indian woman to win an Olympic medal; Leander Paes who won the bronze in tennis in 1996 at the Atlanta Olympics and remarkably, is the only tennis player to compete in all the Olympics from 1992 to 2016; a host of boxers and wrestlers—both men and women—Vijender Singh, Mary Kom, Lovlina Borgohain, Sushil Kumar, Sakshi Malik, Bajrang Punia; our medal-winning shuttlers Saina Nehwal and P. V. Sindhu; Neeraj Chopra who, on the strength of his javelin throw, won the gold in Tokyo in 2020 and on the back of his recent crowning as World Champion, hopes are high that he will bring home a second gold at the Paris Olympics in 2024. The roll call of Indian champions is long.
The connection between Olympics and film, however, possibly needs a stretch of imagination for many. The close to 50 official feature-length films made by renowned auteurs from around the world or the extraordinary footage of human endeavour and striving that captured the history of the Olympic Games would certainly not leap to mind.
So, when the Olympic Museum in Lausanne approached Film Heritage Foundation—we are both members of the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF)—to partner with them to present a film festival and photography exhibition, drawn from their impressive collections of films and stills, in Mumbai, it opened up a whole new vista that went beyond games. In addition to showcasing the film heritage of the Olympics, including Indians at the Games over the decades, the festival will also spotlight the art, culture and philosophy of the Olympics through the stunning images of Olympism Made Visible.
This cultural partnership between Film Heritage Foundation and the Olympic Museum to present “Olympics in Reel Life – A Festival of Films and Photographs” could not have been more timely as India is hosting the International Olympic Committee session after 40 years from 15th October this year. There has been talk that India will be pitching to host the 2036 Olympics.
When we mentioned to people that Film Heritage Foundation was planning a film festival and photography exhibition about the Olympic Games, the first reaction was puzzlement. We were asked if the festival would include films like Chariots of Fire or popular sports-themed Indian films or biopics on Indian Olympians. I wasn’t surprised given the limited view that people in India tend to have about films, which is immediately associated with cinema and mass entertainment. For years, we have been battling the perception that “films” refers only to feature films when it is indeed about the moving image as a whole that encompasses everything including documentaries, short films, newsreels, television series and even home movies that form the fabric of our film heritage and that our foundation works to preserve and restore.
I knew from the time the Olympics made its debut on the small screen, millions have been glued to television screens to watch the Indian contingent walk proudly behind the Indian flag at the grand opening ceremony. We watched with bated breath as our hockey teams, wrestlers, weightlifters, boxers, shooters, gymnasts and athletes matched their skills against the best in the world. In those moments, they represented the hopes and dreams of a nation and served as inspiration to athletes waiting in the wings to find their moment in the sun on the Olympic podium.
We are fortunate that the Olympic Museum has preserved these films and photographs for posterity, enabling us to showcase them to contemporary audiences. The Olympic Museum in Lausanne has a unique collection of films that span over a century beginning from 1900 to the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022. I knew that this would be an unmissable opportunity to showcase this glorious heritage, which included highlights of India’s sporting history.
We have an ambitious plan to screen films through the day for seven days in a row at the Little Theatre and the Godrej Dance Theatre at the NCPA. The selection of films was challenging given the breadth of the programming and it took several Zoom conversations over several weeks with Robert Jaquier, manager of the film collection at the Olympic Museum, to arrive at a programme that will be a feast for cinephiles, sports and history buffs and children. The list of films is mouthwatering and will take viewers on a journey around the world and back in time, starting with the Stockholm 1912 Games.
It is going to be a feast of the moving image—33 films, several of which have been beautifully restored, and 10 series from the Olympic Channel: Tokyo Olympiad (1965), by the great Japanese director Kon Ichikawa, that has been described as “a masterpiece of visual design”; the magnificent Olympia – Parts One and Two (1938), by Leni Riefenstahl, that is hailed as a masterpiece; Visions of Eight (1973) made for the 1972 Munich Olympics that comprised eight sections directed by an array of acclaimed filmmakers including Milos Forman, Claude Lelouch, John Schlesinger and Ichikawa; Alberto Isaac’s The Olympics in Mexico (1969) that was nominated for an Academy Award; the first of Bud Greenspan’s 10 official films, 16 Days of Glory (1986), that travelled out of the stadium to interview the competitors and their families; Carlos Saura’s Marathon (1993), the official film of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, that used the men’s marathon as the vehicle to weave the narrative of his vision of the Games. The Olympic Channel series offers a view into the world of Indian Olympians and sportspersons with series like Jee Jaan Se and An Olympic Tale.
We live in an age of filmmaking that is increasingly dependent on computer graphics and visual effects and more disturbingly, AI, which is now hailed as the new frontier. Many of the films that will be screened at Olympics in Reel Life were made over a century ago using 16 mm to 70 mm formats. They are triumphs of analogue film craft. The official film of the 1952 Helsinki Games involved a team of 60 cameramen from nine countries; the 1948 London Olympics film, shot by 16 cameramen in glorious Technicolor, was the first Olympic colour film; in 1936, 1.2 million feet of film was shot by more than 50 cameramen from every conceivable angle, including underwater, for Riefenstahl’s Olympia. Dazzling editing technique, sound design and the use of telephoto lenses in these films make for a breathtaking viewing experience even if you are not a sports afficionado.
We have a grand vision for the festival that will go beyond moving and still images to immerse an entire city in the ethos and heritage of the Olympics and the values it represents. We chose the NCPA as the ideal location for the festival since that would enable us to screen films through the day as well as showcase the extraordinary work of renowned international photographers in the Olympism Made Visible exhibition across the sprawling campus. A separate section devoted to historic photographs of Indians in Olympics has also been planned.
The NCPA is the hub, but the idea is to move beyond its campus to reach out to more people including school children, especially from the network of close to 2,000 municipal schools in Mumbai, who might otherwise not have the opportunity to be exposed to the sporting heritage of the Games and the inspirational achievements of the Olympians. With this in mind, we have tied up with the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to have municipal schoolchildren watch select screenings and to also flood the cityscape with iconic images of Indian Olympians in action in high footfall locations across Mumbai that would stir the pride of the person on the street.
In this marriage of sport, film and art, we are delighted to unveil to the public for the first time the work of award-winning photographer Poulomi Basu, who travelled to schools in Odisha to capture evocative images of the impact of sport and education on schoolchildren, especially girls facing societal challenges. Beside her work, Olympism Made Visible also showcases fine art photography by an array of renowned international photographers including Dana Lixenberg and Lorenzo Vitturi. These photographers travelled to different corners of the world to capture through the lens of their artistic eye the impact of sport on conflict resolution, gender equality, education, immigrant issues, social development and building bridges for peace in communities, many of which live on the margins of society. We are fortunate to have two of these acclaimed photographers—Lixenberg and Vitturi— travel to Mumbai to present their work and engage with art aficionados, up-andcoming photographers, and children through moderated conversations and workshops during their time here.
As people immerse themselves in the magnificence of Olympic film heritage, we hope that it serves as a reminder of the importance of saving our audiovisual heritage. We know that these moments captured on film made the legacy of some mortals immortal and will stay with us long after the curtains come down on Olympics in Reel Life.
HIGHLIGHTS OF OLYMPISM MADE VISIBLE
This article was originally published in the October 2023 issue of ON Stage.
