Filmmaker Shivendra Singh Dungarpur says he is a man who is always waiting. He wonders who will walk in through his doors next, with an old, decaying film reel in their hands. “Celluloid film is being discarded on the scrap heap every day. I am constantly looking for films to save. Every second day, I have kabadiwalas walking in with old reels mostly in dilapidated old cans, sometimes wrapped in a newspaper — imagine my dismay! Then, I take the sometimes hardened (mostly acetate) films to my turntable to soften them; it is like watching the birth of a child,” says the director who made Celluloid Man (2012), and founded the Film Heritage Foundation (FHF) in January 2014.

Shivendra Singh Dungarpur is restoring the print of the first Konkani film