Film Archivist PK Nair died

Indian film archivist and film scholar Paramesh Krishnan Nair died on 4 March 2016. He was 82.

He was the founder and former director of the National Film Archive of India (NFAI) in 1964.

In 2012, Celluloid Man, an award-winning documentary was made on his life and works, by Shivendra Singh Dungarpur. Later it won two National Awards at the 60th National Film Awards, including Best Biographical Film and Best Editing.

The film was released in India on 3 May 2013 to coincide with the centenary of Indian cinema.

About Paramesh Krishnan Nair

• Born on 6 April 1933 in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, Nair is regarded as the Henri Langlois of India because of his lifelong dedication towards the preservation of films in India.

• A passionate film archivist, he worked at the NFAI for over three decades, collecting films from India and from all over the world.

• He continued with the NFAI till 1991 and by the time he retired as NFAI director, he had acquired a whopping 12000 films for the archive (8000 were Indian and the rest foreign films)

• He was instrumental in acquiring for the archive several landmark Indian films like Dadasaheb Phalke's Raja Harishchandra and Kaliya Mardan, Bombay Talkies films such as Jeevan Naiya, Bandhan, Kangan, Achhut Kanya and Kismet, SS Vasan's Chandralekha and Uday Shankar's Kalpana.

• He joined the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune as a research assistant in 1961 and later in 1965 was appointed assistant curator.

• In 2008, he was awarded the Satyajit Ray Memorial Award

Now get latest Current Affairs on mobile, Download # 1  Current Affairs App