Some called cinema their ‘children’, others treated them like ‘butterflies’. For legendary Indian archivist P.K. Nair, cinema is a living, breathing thing that forms the very basis of our identity, place, and history. Directed by filmmaker-archivist Shivendra Singh Dungapur and shot on 16mm, this heartfelt documentary portrait of the founder of the National Film Archive of India (NFAI) is a rousing journey through one man’s commitment to saving and preserving Indian cinema heritage, as well as his profound mentorship of and influence on generations of filmmakers.

In a nation that has long been a prolific maker and spectator of cinema, India’s early film history was rapidly disappearing in the 1950s and 1960s because film materials had not been systematically preserved, and the notion of film archives was still nascent. Being an precocious collector and lover of films, Nair realized the urgent need to rescue and show them. Interspersed with filmmaker interviews and rare film excerpts, Celluloid Man is a loving tribute to Nair’s tireless efforts and guardianship, and a testament to how cinema needs to be seen, saved, and rediscovered.

Shivendra Singh Dungarpur (b. 1969, India) is an Indian film director, producer, and archivist. Dungarpur produced and directed over 1,200 advertising films, as well as short films and documentaries, for which he has received multiple accolades. He has made three documentaries on cinema: the multi-award-winning Celluloid Man (2012), The Immortals (2015), and CzechMate: In Search of Jirí Menzel (2018). Dungapur has been lauded for his commitment to film preservation, restoration, and education, especially as the founder-director of the Film Heritage Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation and restoration of Indian cinema heritage.