Old films likely damaged in fire at Thai Film Archive

By The Nation

 

 

The national Film Archives has filed a police report about damage to property after a fire on Sunday (September 29).

 

The temporary film-repair studio in the fire incident.

 

Police were informed by a security guard that the fire damaged the office of its temporary film-repair studios at around 7pm. It took about an hour to put out the fire.

 

There were no casualties.

 

The organisation said it had not checked all the items damaged by the fire. According to the complaint, the studio had copies of old films but a digital copy exists in the organisation’s server. Some of the films likely damaged in the fire were Blood of the Farmer (1936) and Chang Phuak King(1941).

 

There has been no official statement yet on the cause of the fire.

 

Despite the fire incident, the Film Archive remains open as a museum of movies, and continues to show old movies as usual. The Film Archive is open from Tuesday to Sunday (9am to 7pm).

 

Source: https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30376896

 

-- © Copyright The Nation Thailand 2019-09-30

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Probably the nitrocellulose film ignited. This type of film is inflammable and prone to spontaneous combustion if not stored properly.

5 hours ago, webfact said:

Old films likely damaged in fire at Thai Film Archive

With any luck, most of the slapstick soap operas would have all burned up. ????

 I would like to go visit this place.  But I am not surprised if there was no decent fire protection system in the building/storage areas.

I’m sure it was a tragic loss. There were so many greats.

15 hours ago, webfact said:

digital copy exists in the organisation’s server

Good move. I wonder if they allow viewing their archive online?

 

32 minutes ago, canopy said:

Good move. I wonder if they allow viewing their archive online?

 

Well the article says digital copies exist.  It doesn't say how many digital copies exist.  The website was slow to load so I moved on.  I tried a few of the tabs and hykperlinks and see books and shirts for sale.  I did not see anything on the web site about viewing online films.  That would seem to be a decent source of income if they set up the servers and pay structure and method well.

 

http://www.fapot.org/en/home.php