Obituary - Vijay Hanumant Jadhav

Vijay Hanumant Jadhav, Director of the National Film Archive of India expired after a heart attack on Dec 13, 2010. He had worked with several media related organizations including Press Information Bureau, All India Radio and Doordarshan. Mr. Jadhav also had a stint as Public Relations Officer (Defence), Pune. He was interested in music and was an accomplished tabla player and had trained under Ustad Alla Rakha.  Jadhav was a B.E. in Chemical Engineering from UDCT, Mumbai. Because of his chemical engineering background he could take several initiatives for preservation of films as head at NFAI.   He leaves behind his wife and two daughters.

Mr. Jadhav’s association with the FFSI in conducting Film Workshops and Film Appreciation courses in Regional languages for the film society activists instilled unbounded enthusiasm in the Film Society circles. Particularly after he took up the Digital Restoration project in the Archive, expectations rose high and many of us eagerly awaited for the day when we could have DVD prints of some of the rare classics of the Indian heritage cinema including the short length of the first feature Phalke’s Raja Harischandra. Most the Film Festivals that are being held now invariably had the old classics of both Indian and foreign classics from the Archive and Mr. Jadhav always responded positively to our requests.