''Celluloid Man'' is a 2012

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

directed by

Shivendra Singh Dungarpur Shivendra Singh Dungarpur (born 25 August 1969) is an Indian filmmaker, producer, film archivist and restorer. He is best known for his films '' Celluloid Man'', '' The Immortals'' and '' CzechMate: In Search of Jiří Menzel''. He has also dire ...

that explores the life and work of legendary Indian archivist

P. K. Nair Paramesh Krishnan Nair (6 April 1933 – 4 March 2016) was an Indian film archivist and film scholar, who was the founder and director of the National Film Archive of India (NFAI) in 1964. He is regarded as the Henri Langlois of India because o ...

, founder of the

National Film Archive of India The National Film Archive of India (NFAI) was established as a media unit of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in February 1964. It is was a member of the International Federation of Film Archives. In March 2022, it was merged with ...

and guardian of Indian cinema. ''Celluloid Man'' has been screened at 50 film festivals – one of the few Indian films to have been selected for such a high number of festivals. The film has won two National Awards at the 60th National Film Awards, including Best Biographical Film and

Best Editing This is a list of categories of awards commonly awarded through organizations that bestow film awards, including those presented by various film, festivals, and people's awards. Best Actor/Best Actress *See Best Actor#Film awards, Best Actress# ...

for Irene Dhar Malik. The film was released in India on 3 May 2013 to coincide with the centenary of Indian cinema.

Synopsis

P. K. Nair's fascination with cinema began as a child and he watched his first few films lying on the white sand floor of a cinema in Trivandrum. He was a collector even then - collecting ticket stubs, lobby cards, even weighing machine tickets sporting pictures of the stars of the day. He grew up to be a great collector of films. 1,700 films were made in India during the silent film era, of which only nine survive thanks to the efforts of Nair. He travelled to remote parts of India to collect and save cans of rare films. The fact that Dadasaheb Phalke is recognized today as the father of Indian cinema is Nair's doing. He tried to save any film that he could get his hands on, be it world cinema, Hindi popular films or regional Indian cinema. He even took world cinema to the villages of India. He has influenced generations of Indian film students especially the Indian New Wave filmmakers such as

Mani Kaul Mani Kaul (25 December 1944 – 6 July 2011) was an Indian director of Hindi films and a reputed figure in Indian parallel cinema. He graduated from the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) where he was a student of Ritwik Ghatak and ...

Kumar Shahani Kumar Shahani (born 7 December 1940) is an Indian film director and screenwriter, best known for his parallel cinema films '' Maya Darpan'' (1972), ''Tarang'' (1984), ''Khayal Gatha'' (1989) and '' Kasba'' (1990). Due to his dedication to forma ...

, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Ketan Mehta, Saeed Akhtar Mirza,

Jahnu Barua Jahnu Barua (born 1952) is an Indian film director. He has written and directed a number of Assamese and Hindi films. Some of his notable films are ''Halodhia Choraye Baodhan Khai'' (1987), '' Firingoti'' (1992), ''Xagoroloi Bohu Door'' (1995), ...

, Girish Kasaravalli, John Abraham (director),

Vidhu Vinod Chopra Vidhu Vinod Chopra (born 5 September 1952) is an Indian film director, producer, editor, screenwriter, lyricist and actor. His well-known films as director are ''Parinda'' (1988), '' 1942: A Love Story'' (1994). He is also known for producing ' ...

and Kundan Shah. The film is woven with interviews of several filmmakers and film personalities who have been influenced directly and indirectly by P. K. Nair, among them

Krzysztof Zanussi Krzysztof Pius Zanussi (born 17 June 1939) is a Polish film and theatre director, producer and screenwriter. He is a professor of European film at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland where he conducts a summer workshop. He is ...

, Lester James Peries,

, Saeed Akhtar Mirza, Gulzar, Basu Chatterjee,

Naseeruddin Shah Naseeruddin Shah (born 20 July 1950) is an Indian actor. He is notable in Indian parallel cinema. He has also starred in international productions. He has won numerous awards in his career, including three National Film Awards, three Filmfare A ...

Kamal Haasan Kamal Haasan (born 7 November 1954) is an Indian actor, filmmaker, screenwriter, playback singer, television presenter and politician who works mainly in Tamil cinema and has also appeared in some Telugu, Malayalam, Hindi, Kannada and Bengali l ...

, Girish Kasaravalli,

, Jaya Bachchan,

Dilip Kumar Mohammed Yusuf Khan (; 11 December 1922 – 7 July 2021), better known by his stage name Dilip Kumar, was an Indian actor who worked in Hindi cinema. Credited with pioneering method acting in cinema, he dominated the Indian movie scene from lat ...

Saira Banu Saira Banu (born 23 August 1944) is a former Indian actress who mainly worked in Hindi language films. She was one of the most popular actresses in her heyday in the Indian film industry in the 1960s and early 1970s. Career Saira Banu was the ...

, Sitara Devi,

Santosh Sivan Santosh Sivan (born 8 February 1964) is an Indian cinematographer, film director, producer and actor known for his works in Malayalam, Tamil and Hindi cinema. Santosh graduated from the Film and Television Institute of India and has to date co ...

, Rajkumar Hirani,

Shyam Benegal Shyam Benegal (born 14 December 1934) is an Indian film director, screenwriter and documentary filmmaker. Often regarded as the pioneer of parallel cinema, he is widely considered as one of the greatest filmmakers post 1970s. He has received ...

Mahesh Bhatt Mahesh Bhatt (born 20 September 1948) is an Indian film director, producer and screenwriter known for his works in Hindi cinema. A stand-out film from his earlier period is ''Saaransh'' (1984), screened at the 14th Moscow International Film F ...

Yash Chopra Yash Raj Chopra (27 September 1932 21 October 2012) was an Indian people, Indian film director and film producer who worked in Bollywood, Hindi cinema. The founding chairman of the film production and distribution company Yash Raj Films, Chop ...

Ramesh Sippy Ramesh Sippy (born 23 January 1947) is an Indian film director and producer in Hindi cinema. He is particularly known for directing ''Sholay'' (1975), which is regarded as one of the most influential Indian film ever made. The Government of ...

, Mrinal Sen and Surama Ghatak. Besides the interviews, the film has rare footage from early Indian masterpieces like '' Raja Harishchandra'', ''Kaliya Mardan'', ''Gallant Hearts'', ''Marthanda Verma'', ''Jamai Babu'', '' Fearless Nadia'', ''

Sant Tukaram Sant Tukaram Maharaj (Marathi pronunciation: ̪ukaːɾam was a 17th-century Marathi poet, Hindu ''sant'' (saint), popularly known as Tuka, Tukobaraya, Tukoba in Maharashtra. He was a Sant of Varkari sampradaya (Marathi-Vaishnav tradition) - ...

'', ''

Achut Kanya ''Achhut Kannya'' ( en, Untouchable Maiden, italic=yes) is a 1936 Indian Hindi film. Among the early super-hits in the Bombay film industry, the film deals with the social position of Dalit girls and is considered a reformist period-piece. T ...

'', '' Kismat'', '' Chandralekha'' and '' Kalpana'' - all films that were archived and thus saved by Nair.

Production

The production started at the end of 2010 and the film was completed in June 2012. The film has been shot in Warsaw, Colombo, Pune, Nasik, Mumbai, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Heggodu, Bengaluru and Kolkata, and eleven cinematographers worked on it:

Santosh Thundiyil Santosh Thundiyil is an Indian cinematographer. He is best known for films like ''Kuch Kuch Hota Hai'' (1998), ''Devadoothan'' (2000), ''Krrish'' (2006), '' Pinjar'' (2003), ''Rowdy Rathore'' (2012) and '' Jai Ho'' (2014). Early life and educat ...

, K. U. Mohanan,

Abhik Mukhopadhyay Avik Mukhopadhyay is an Indian cinematographer who works in Bengali and Hindi films. He collaborated with eminent directors like Rituparno Ghosh, Aparna Sen, Srijit Mukherji, Kamaleshwar Mukherjee, Anik Dutta, Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury, Shoojit ...

, P. S. Vinod, H. M. Ramachandra, R. V. Ramani, Vikas Sivaraman,

Mahesh Aney Mahesh Aney is an Indian cinematographer. Career A Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) graduate with specialization in cinematography, Mahesh Aney has shot more than a thousand commercials including some award-winning films for Pepsi, ...

and Kiran Deohans. The film was shot on 16mm film and then converted to 35mm, with an aspect ratio of 1.85: 1.

Awards

''Celluloid Man'' has won two National Awards in India at the 60th National Film Awards for the Best Historical / Biographical Reconstruction and for Best Editing in 2013. It has also won the "Nestor The Chronicler" award for the best archival film for ''Celluloid Man'' at the XII Kyiv International Documentary Film Festival 2013, Ukraine. Shivendra Singh was given the Bimal Roy Memorial Emerging Talent Award for his film ''Celluloid Man'' at a ceremony on 18 October 2013 Shivendra Singh Dungarpur was awarded the Special Jury Award for Celluloid Man at the 13th edition of the Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF) 2014 on 9 February 2014.

Festivals

References

External links

*{{IMDb title, 2190196 2012 films 2012 documentary films Documentary films about the cinema of India * Indian biographical films Indian documentary films Films shot in 16 mm film Films directed by Shivendra Singh Dungarpur