Director: Shivendra Singh Dungarpur
We celebrate 100 years of Indian cinema, yet we're little aware of the man who painstakingly restored Dadasaheb Phalke's work as well as several other silent pictures and talkies, and then built our country's moving pictures archive, one film can at a time. The documentary 'Celluloid Man', directed by Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, introduces us to that man Paramesh Krishnan Nair, or PK Nair - India's film archivist who dedicated his life's work to preserve our history. As far back as 1969, Nair rode overnight in a newspaper van to Nasik to collect Phalke's film reels from his son, then slowly pieced the scenes in order from studying notes that Phalke had scribbled in an old diary. 'Celluloid Man' celebrates his unstinting devotion to archiving.. and through Nair's story we journey through a celebration of Indian cinema.
Early on during the film you realize this is story of an extraordinary man, a film hero. PK Nair, during his stint at the FTII in Pune, realized the invaluable need for an archive and went about setting one up during his career. From visits to forgotten studios, scouring through junkyard shops and bartering with international film archives, Nair set up a treasure trove of moving pictures. He was careful not to discriminate on the contents of the film; Nair was clear that as an archivist, it was important that all works of cinema be seen, and by everyone. This is illustrated in a beautiful sequence in
11:33 PM, May 03, 2013
In feature films the director is God; in documentary films God is the director - Alfred Hitchcock. With due respect to Alfred Hitchcock's ideas, I dare say that here is a documentary which is far more relevant and heavier in content than most of the feature films where god is not the director. In fact, Shivendra Singh Dungarpur's National Award winning documentary 'Celluloid Man' is a film appreciation course in...
11:36 AM, May 03, 2013
Bangalore: The current lot of players are good enough to take India into Davis Cup World Group next year but it requires special talent to be in top-100, yesteryear Indian tennis icon Anand Amritraj said on Saturday. Amritraj said the controversy involving the top Indian players and AITA was unfortunate but hopefully it will end completely so that the country could qualify for the World Group in 2014. "Hopefully in... 
Ramesh Krishnan also refused to compare tennis with cricket. ... 
