India on Film: Celluloid Man - a tribute to film archivist and obsessive cinephile P.K. Nair.
In partnership with Watershed Bristol, BFI, British Council and South West Silents, we present Celluloid Man as part of an India on Film series this summer.
Celluloid Man is a tribute to film archivist and obsessive cinephile P.K. Nair, a man whose childhood fascination with cinema finally led to the creation of the National Film Archive of India.
In a country where film preservation was once regarded as irrelevant, Nair’s has been a long, hard fight to preserve precious fragments of India’s film heritage that would otherwise be lost forever. Comparable to France’s late, great ‘man of cinema’, the noted film archivist Henri Langlois, Nair has also influenced generations of Indian filmmakers by introducing them to new worlds through the prism of cinema and was central to the evolution of Bollywood as we know it today.
Featuring wonderful clips and interviews with many Indian and international filmmakers, this award-winning documentary is both a portrait of a man’s passion with film and a love letter to cinema itself.
With an introduction by David Robinson, film critic and historian.
Supported by Bristol City Council to celebrate India & Pakistan’s 70th Independence anniversary in 2017.
