Fan digitally remasters Salman Shah's old movies

Evan Mollick, and a few other hard-line fans of late superstar Salman Shah, have taken a massive undertaking of digitally remastering the actor's old classic films to preserve them and make them available in digital formats for the younger generations to behold.

Since their undertaking, 11 of the star's films have been digitally remastered and can be watched through digital medium. The films are, "Keyamot Theke Keyamot", "Denmohor", "Prem Juddho", "Shotter Mrittu Nei", "Shopner Prithibi", "Bikkhob", "Jibon Songsar", "Mohamilon", "Asha Bhalobasa", "Ananda Ashru", and "Ontore Ontore".

Evan and his team first realised that the films must be preserved when they went to attend a retrospective film screening of Salman Shah, titled "Salman Shah Utsab" at Madhumita Cinema Hall and other film screenings in the capital in 2019.

"I realised that the films were downloaded from YouTube, and the quality, sound and resolution were really bad," Evan states.

"The same thing happened at the screening of Salman Shah's 'Tomake Chai' at Bangladesh Film Archive. Also, the length of the movie was cut short by omitting five songs. Moreover, the overall quality of the print did not seem appropriate for screenings. 

"That's the day I decided that I need to do something about it, because I felt other than that the films will not survive," says Evan, who is a film editor and director himself.

Evan has an editing panel, but he realised that the films will need further assistance to be fully transformed into digital formats. "I began by collecting the prints of the movies, and it was a herculean task. No one wanted to give me the DVDs or prints. Finally, I got the prints from an Internet Protocol television (IPTV)," he said.

"After getting the prints, I went to Kolkata, India and did the remastering and restoration work there. We remastered the resolutions, added Dolby sound system and also used AI technology to restore the films," said Evan. "There is still so much to do. The remastering work cost me over BDT 3,50,000. Now I have no more money to carry on the project, but I do believe if Salman Shah's fans like me help me with the project, I will be able to complete the restoration and remastering of the rest of the movies," Evan said.

Evan Mollick recently organised a screening of the remastered films to encourage others to preserve the legacy of the superstar. Almost 250 people came to the screening and applauded Evan's initiative. One Salman Shah fan, Sajid Kamal, said, "The remastering has been done superbly and it enhanced the viewing experience a lot. I thank Evan for this. We should help him to go forward with the project."

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Jakir Hossain Raju, director of Salman Shah's movie "Jibon Songsar" appraised Evan's initiative and said, "The remastered prints seem better than the original ones. I think Salman Shah's admirers and audience will love this."