"Most films preserved in the BFA date back to the 1950s. But the archive lacks proper facilities to take care of them," said Jahangir Hossain, BFA director general.

The BFA has neither a digital cleaner to remove scratches on films, nor any editing machine or Telecine machine to copy films as the celluloid wears down after 25 years.

A permanent and spacious place is necessary for the BFA to preserve the materials as delicate as films. The BFA does not have any projector room where the films could be screened to check damages and scratches.

Since its establishment in 1978, the archive has operated in rented houses and shifted its office twice. Many films were damaged during shifting. It needs a chamber that has to maintain its temperature at 10° for proper preservation of films.

Only recently, the BFA has been given a permanent place in Agargaon. "We will be able to screen rare films in our projection hall and increase our collections after we move to Agargaon," the DG said.

"The yearly budget for the BFA is Tk 48 lakh, the bulk of which is spent on staff salary," Jahangir said.

The government did not allocate funds to the archive for the fiscal 2003-4 to collect materials.

The BFA is trying to collect the prints of Jago Hua Savera, a film produced after Padma Nadir Majhi of Manik Bondopaddhay, from London Film Archive, and of Dhrubo from Pune Film Institute, but this would need funds for collection which we don't have, he said.

Although section 7, article 389(Ka) of the Copyright Act 2000 says producers must submit at least one print of each film to the BFA for preservation and research, the law is not complied with.

Recently, the BFA DG sent a letter to Abu Taher, vice-chairman of Film Censor Board, not to give any permission without approval of submitting prints to the archive. But the censor board has not replied yet.

"People would have benefited from this valuable historical treasure, if it had been taken care of. City dwellers even don't know about the archive," Jahangir said.

The BFA has 1,580 films, many dating back to the 1950s and 1960s, from the first Bangla film, Mukh o Mukhosh to Hangor Nodi Grenade.

It archived art films, short films and commercial films and social, historical, cultural and political films from different countries around the world. This year, it received 500 films from the Chinese embassy.

About 50,000 screenplay writings, books, still frames, journals, technical books on film making have also been archived.

The rare collections like still frames made by the Nawabs of Dhaka in the 1950s are also preserved in the archive.

The BFA screened 18 oldies like Nadi o Nari, Titas Ekti Nadir Nam and Surja Dighal Bari at the International Film Festival at Russian Cultural Centre on September 18-25.