The museum is spread over two buildings, the Gulshan Mahal heritage wing, and the modernist new building.
The displays at Gulshan Mahal, spread over eight different halls of various sizes, trace the history of Indian films from the silent era to New Wave cinema. The new museum building meanwhile mostly has interactive displays.
NMIC has a big collection of artifacts including the armour worn by Sivaji Ganesan in ‘Veera Pandya Kattabomman‘ and the red coat worn by M G Ramachandran in ‘Adimai Penn’.
Film properties, vintage equipment, posters, copies of important films, promotional leaflets, soundtracks, trailers, transparencies, old cinema magazines, and statistics covering filmmaking and distribution are
displayed in a systematic way, depicting the history of Indian cinema in chronological order.
The Kids’ Film Studio and ‘Gandhi and Cinema’ are the other attractions.
In May, the NMIC Complex comprising state-of-the-art auditoria will host the 17th Mumbai International Film Festival for Documentary, Shorts and Animation Films (MIFF).
Minister of state for information & broadcasting L Murugan paid a visit for Saturday’s reopening. Director general of Films Division Ravindra Bhakar gave him an overview of the extensive restoration work that had to be undertaken due to prolonged closure.
NMIC, which is a unique museum of its kind in India, was inaugurated by PM Narendra Modi in January 2019.
