Celluloid’s knight in shining armour

Shivendra Singh Dungarpur’s work in film restoration and preservation has literally brought India’s film history back from the grave

FBy Shalini Sharma

ilm preservation is such a nascent idea in India that you have to use a simple analogy to explain its extreme significance. Say you have original paintings of legends like M Husain or S H Raza. You make reproductions of these artworks and then dump the originals in a godown where they are allowed to rot because you are comfortable knowing you have the prints.

This sacrilege is vertigo-inducing. But the truth is that India’s movie industry is a celluloid genocide: only 29 of 1,138 silent films made in India survive. Eighty per cent of the more than 2,000 films made in Bombay between 1931 and 1950 are unavailable for viewing. These include priceless gems like India’s first talkie, Alam Ara (1931), and first locally-made colour film, Kisan Kamya (1937). Apparently, 31,000 reels of film held by government-run archives have been lost and destroyed. Privately-held film companies have been just as neglectful.

Enter the hero

Indian movies always star a hero/saviour. In the world of movie restoration, the equivalent of that hero is Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, filmmaker, archivist and restorer. Shivi, as he is affectionately known, is royalty and the nephew of the legendary cricket administrator, Raja Singh Dungarpur. He is also a Film and Television Institute of India, Pune, alumni and had already made 1,000 commercial films for leading multinationals when he inexplicably decided, out of passion, to make a seven-hour-long film called The Celluloid Man on PK Nair, the founder of the National Film Archives of India, who had painstakingly built up a phenomenal collection of film archives over decades, but on his retirement, was banned from even entering the institution.

The Celluloid Man sought to put Nair’s pioneering role out there for posterity. It won two National Awards and travelled to over 50 film festivals around the world, but more importantly, it put the idea of celluloid preservation in Shivendra’s head.

Shivendra then took a trip to Bologna in Italy for a restored films festival, headlined by Martin Scorsese’s foundation. “It was in Bologna that I connected with Scorsese’s World Cinema

THE BIGGER PICTURE

(Top) Shivendra with Amitabh Bachchan, who’s the ambassador of his non-profit body; (above) a poster of

India's first feature film, Raja Harishchandra

Foundation and was told that they had been trying for almost three years to get the reels of the film Kalpana (1948), directed by Uday Shankar (the brother of Pandit Ravi Shankar), out of India for restoration, but had not succeeded,” says Shivendra.

Within three months, Shivendra delivered the cans. When the film was restored, it was screened in Cannes, where he walked the red carpet with Amala Shankar in recognition of the effort he had made to make this possible.

The battle begins

Back in India, Shivendra started a non-profit body called Film Heritage Foundation (FHF) to restore Indian films and documentaries to their original formats and preserve them for posterity. Not everyone saw the point of it and the indifference baffled Shivendra. Producers working on Rs 100+ crore mega projects recoiled at paying a couple of lakhs to preserve their past films. One cannot trace the original negatives of films as recent as Mani Ratnam’s Thiruda Thiruda (1993) and Thalapathi (1991), Gulzar’s Maachis (1995), Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Khamoshi (1996), S S Rajamouli’s Magadheera (2009)… the list is endless. Many films were sold for their silver; others were lost in fires or just discarded as scrap.

Since there were no technical professionals in India to help the restoration process, Shivendra had to create them himself. Over the past five years, he has conducted four annual workshops where students are chosen rigorously and trained free of cost by teachers drawn from leading film institutions and world museums. These workshops have had a tremendous impact.

“We have introduced over 300 individuals to film preservation practices since 2015,” says Shivendra. “There is a growing perception of film preservation as a viable career opportunity. There is also an increased awareness in the film industry and government bodies about saving their films. Movements for film preservation have begun in neighbouring countries like Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, thanks to their participation in our workshops.”

The workshops are backed by a personal endorsement from Martin Scorsese and rousing support from Christopher Nolan.

“Christopher Nolan is a vocal advocate for

“THERE IS AN INCREASED AWARENESS IN THE FILM INDUSTRY AND GOVERNMENT BODIES ABOUTSAVINGFILMS.” —SHIVENDRA SINGH DUNGARPUR

celluloid as a shooting, exhibition and preservation medium,” says Shivendra. “When he was in India, he saw for himself the work that we do. He has become a friend and a supporter of the FHF.”

Both Hollywood icons have gone on record to acknowledge that the work done by FHF is exemplary and rated it the best in the world in its field.

Support and victory

In India too, there is a growing grateful support from many leading filmmakers. Jaya Bachchan is one of FHF’S biggest supporters and Amitabh Bachchan threw in the weight of his fame as its brand ambassador. (Incidentally Bachchan is a keen archivist, who has actually preserved all his films over the years in an air-conditioned space in his office.) Today the foundation has on its board advisors such as Shyam Benegal, Gulzar, Kumar Shahani, Kamal Haasan, Girish Kasaravalli, Gianluca Farinelli, Krzysztof Zanussi and Mark Cousins.

Shivendra’s team has till now successfully preserved up to 500 films, including important

By Lt General Satish Dua

The first time I wore the Boy Scouts uniform in school, I was, somehow, filled with self-importance, constantly smoothening or twirling the scarf with pride, as if it had been a medal. I wonder why.

In school, students were divided into houses. We made house teams and competed in games and sports. Isn’t it funny that no matter how our team plays, whether they win or lose, we still wear their colours with pride? Why? Possibly because the determination and perseverance the colour signifies can change outcomes. Your team’s colour unites you with them; it signifies your common ethos and training. Wearing a uniform comes with rules and expectations, the most common of which are expected behaviours.

Signs of Distinction

Across the world, uniforms carry an undeniable symbolic value. But in the Armed forces, the uniform denotes discipline, equality and respect. Soldiers take pride and find motivation in intangibles like war cries, mottos, credos, uniforms, badges, medals, insignia, flags and pennants. All of these motivate them to give their best.

Uniforms in the Army give the soldiers an identity. The badges of your regiment give you a sense of belonging; bonds you with your comrades, with whom you share ties of life and death. Medals motivate. They are revered.

In a ceremonial uniform, some senior soldiers wear a sash and officers wear a pouch belt diagonally across their chest, on which are inscribed the battle honours the regiment has won in the past. When a soldier wears a uniform adorned with all these accoutrements, it evokes immense pride in him – and also places a great responsibility on him. He wears on his uniform what has been achieved by his predecessors – his forefathers, so to say. He will not do anything to let them down. He will always strive to add to their good name, which can only be done by performing his duty even at the risk of his own life. There is no additional incentive or financial bonus for doing this. Isn’t that the ultimate in motivation?

A soldier serves with the concept of unlimited liability. After all, what price can you put on a man’s life? It is unlimited.

“A SOLDIER SERVES WITH THE CONCEPT OF UNLIMITED LIABILITY. WHAT PRICE CAN YOU PUT ON A MAN’S LIFE? IT’S UNLIMITED.” —LT GENERAL SATISH DUA