Over 20 film festival screenings, names like Gulzar, Shabana Azmi and Naseeruddin Shah chipping in and two national awards may go to some people’s heads, but the only question PK Nair asks director Shivendra Singh Dungarupur is this – “Will it help film preservation?” It is this passion for film preservation and restoration that makes Nair the endearing subject of critically acclaimed documentary Celluloid Man. The film releases next week in PVR Cinemas as part of the celebrations for India’s 100th year of cinema, and explores the contributions and perseverance of India’s own Celluloid Man, Nair. More from Dungarpur on why 100 years of cinema almost boil down to one man.
On Nair as an inspiration.
I studied at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), so I’d seen great films that Nair had shown us. He gave us exposure not just to Indian, but world cinema too. It led to so many great filmmakers coming out of FTII, from Rajkumar Hirani to Girish Kasaravalli. Even personalities like Jaya Bachchan and Naseeruddin Shah, both featured in Celluloid Man, state that they learnt cinema from him.
The trigger behind the film.
I am big on preservation anyway – I collect tickets and photos of actors. In June 2010, I left for Pune to meet Nair saheb and that’s when I saw the deplorable condition of the film prints, which he treated like his children. Plus, there was his remarkable association of showing films in Heggodu, Shimoga. It is the home of cultural organisation Ninasam, started by an arecanut farmer called KV Subbanna. Nair went there every year for a convention, and screened films by Ray, Kurosawa and so on. I went there and met people in there who were talking like they’d grown up watching these films! They had no DVDs, nothing – except Nair. And that finally triggered the making of Celluloid Man.
Did using 11 cinematographers affect the film’s consistency?
Not at all. The film was like a soulful spirit with one mission – that of the thought process of this man. It connected so beautifully. We had so many cameramen because everybody, the absolute top, wanted to work on it.
Why did you choose to shoot it on film, versus digitally?
For Nair, film cans are living beings. I thought there can be no other way to pay respect to a man who brought film into our lives.
Another problem, apart from preservation, that you feel plagues Indian cinema.
We have to focus on independent cinema, not just popular cinema. There has to be a voice, a theatre and government support for it, and for documentaries too. The three have to be in tandem.
Celluloid Man releases on May 3.