The Indian government is to spend more than $140 million restoring thousands of rare films, including silent Bollywood classics, that have been left to rot in public and private archives.

Dimple Kapadia in Mrinal Sen's Antareen Photo: MRINALSEN.ORG

The 6.6 billion rupee effort to preserve the country’s rich film heritage also seeks to rescue documentary footage of independence leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and India’s first prime minister Jawarharlal Nehru, the Times of India reports.

A total of 2,500 films have been earmarked for restoration, including 1,450 from the silent era, the newspaper cited a ministry source as saying.
Many of the prints have been lying in various film archives and societies around India and have decomposed over time due to neglect and wear and tear.

The film titles include classics such as Mrinal Sen’s Antareen (The Confined) Mani Kaul’s Nazar (Sight) and Bimal Roy’s Do Dooni Char (Two Twos are Four)