Hindi
NFAI founder director P K Nair is no more
New Delhi, 4 March: Veteran archivist P K Nair, founder director of the National Film Archive of India (NFAI), Pune, died today. He was 86. After prolonged illness he breathed his last this morning at Sahyadri Nursing Home in Pune. He is survived by a daughter who lives in Thiruvananthapuram and a son who lives in Canada.
Paramesh Krishnan Nair, who had dedicated his life to preservation of films and building the collection of films at the NFAI, was instrumental in archiving 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, S.S. Vasan’s Chandralekha and Uday Shankar’s Kalpana.
Nair joined the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune, as a research assistant in 1961 and went on to play a key role in the setting up of the NFAI in 1964. He was appointed assistant curator in 1965, and continued with the NFAI till 1991 and later became Director. He had helped acquire over 12,000 films for the archive. Of these, 8,000 were Indian and the rest foreign films.
His life and work was immortalised in the documentary Celluloid Man, made by Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, which went on to win a national award.
Born on 6 April 1933 in Thuravanthapuram in Kerala, Nair developed an early interest in cinema. His initiation into films began with Tamil mythological films in the early 1940s such as K. Subramaniam’s Ananthasayanam and Bhakta Prahlada. His fascination for cinema began here, though his family did not support his interest in films.
He graduated in science from the University of Kerala in 1953. Soon after, he went to Bombay (now Mumbai) to pursue a career in filmmaking.
Though he got some practical training in branches of film making from some of the leading film makers of Bombay, particularly Mehboob Khan, Bimal Roy and Hrishikesh Mukherjee, he realised that he did not have the ideal qualities to become a filmmaker himself. His interest lay more in the field of academics. As advised by Jean Bhownagary of Films Division, he appeared for an interview at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), was selected and joined the institute in March 1961 in the position of research assistant.
While at FTII, he assisted Marie Seton and Professor Satish Bahadur in initiating and conducting the film appreciation classes of FTII. He also did the spade work in establishing the film archive set up as a separate wing of FTII. He corresponded with the curators and directors of established film archives in the UK, USA, France, Italy, Poland, Soviet Union and other countries. All of them advised an independent autonomous entity for NFAI and not as a wing of FTII.
The National Film Archive of India was born in 1964 and Nair was appointed to the post of assistant curator in November 1965. He has, since then, established the archive from scratch by collecting films from all over India and the world.
He was promoted as Director of the archive in 1982. He spearheaded the NFAI, Pune for nearly three decades and built up the archive which now enjoys a vibrant international reckoning.
Landmark acquisitions include the Dadasaheb Phalke films and films of New Theatres, Bombay Talkies, Minerva Movietone, Wadia Movietone, Gemini Studios and AVM Productions.
He was instrumental in introducing the works of world masters of cinema like Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa, Andrzej Wajda, Miklós Jancsó, Krzysztof Zanussi,Vittorio De Sica, Federico Fellini, apart from the Indian stalwarts like Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal Sen, V. Shantaram, Raj Kapoor and Guru Dutt to FTII students, film society members, and other film study groups in the country.
He was also instrumental in setting up the International Film Festival of Kerala.
After his retirement, he lived in Pune not very far away from the NFAI and the FTII.
Awards and recognition.
Nair was awarded the Satyajit Ray Memorial Award in 2008. Celluloid Man, the documentary on Nair was made by Shivendra Singh Dungarpur was premiered at the Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna, Italy in June 2012.
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.
The international federation of film critics, FIPRESCI, condoled the passing away of Nair. FIPRESCI India President H N Narahari Rao said in a statement: “It is with deep regret that we are recording here the sad demise of one of our most respected members of FIPRESCI-India P K Nair, former Director of National Film Archive of India and more popularly known as ‘The Celluloid Man’. He passed away today at Pune, the city where he built the Film Archive. He used to attend all the annual general meetings of FIPRESCI India at Goa IFFI without fail and guide us in our activities. We missed him last year but we received his message promptly that he was admitted to the hospital. As a crusader who was deeply concerned with promoting good cinema in the country he made immense contribution to the growth of the Film Society movement in India during last five decades.”
Hindi
GUEST COLUMN: Why film libraries & IPs are the new engines of growth
Unlocking value through catalogue strength and IP synergy
MUMBAI:In a media landscape defined by fragmentation, platform proliferation, and ever-evolving audience behavior, the economics of filmmaking are undergoing a fundamental shift. No longer confined to box office performance, a film’s true value is now measured across an extended lifecycle that spans digital platforms, syndication networks, and global markets. As content consumption becomes increasingly non-linear and algorithm-driven, film libraries and intellectual properties (IPs) are emerging as strategic assets, capable of delivering sustained, long-term returns. For Mohan Gopinath, head – bollywood business at Shemaroo Entertainment Ltd., this transformation signals a decisive move from hit-driven models to portfolio-led value creation. In this piece, Gopinath explores how legacy content, when intelligently repurposed and distributed, can unlock recurring revenue streams, why the interplay between catalogue and original IP is critical, and how media companies can build resilient, future-ready entertainment businesses.
For all these years, we thought that a film is successful if it performs well in theatres. There are opening weekend numbers, box office milestones, and distribution footprints that gave a good picture of how the movie has done commercially and also tell us about its cultural impact. However, there are multiple platforms today, always-on content ecosystem, which has caused a shift. Today, the theatrical performance is not the culmination of a film’s journey but merely the beginning of a much longer and more dynamic lifecycle.
Film libraries today are emerging as high-value, constantly evolving assets that deliver sustained returns well beyond initial release cycles. This becomes a point of great advantage for legacy content owners with diverse catalogues, to shape long-term business outcomes.
According to FICCI-EY, the media and entertainment industry of India achieved a valuation of Rs 2.78 trillion in 2025 which is expected to reach Rs 3.3 trillion by 2028 through a compound annual growth rate of approximately 7 per cent and digital media will bring in more than Rs 1 trillion to become the biggest sector which generates about 36 per cent of overall market revenues.
This shift is the expansion of distribution endpoints. We know how satellite television was once the primary secondary window but today, it coexists with YouTube, OTT platforms, Connected TV, and FAST channels. Each of these platforms caters to distinct audience demographics and consumption behaviors, helping content owners to obtain more value from the same asset across multiple formats.
For instance, films that had great reruns, now find continuous engagement across digital platforms. On YouTube, classic Hindi cinema continues to attract significant viewership, reaching audiences across generations and geographies with remarkable consistency. At Shemaroo Entertainment, this is reflected in our film library shaped over decades as part of a long association with Indian entertainment. From classics such as Amar Akbar Anthony to much-loved entertainers like Jab We Met, Welcome, Dhamaal, Phir Hera Pheri, Dhol, Golmaal, and Bhagam Bhag, many of these titles continue finding new audiences while retaining their place in popular memory. Their enduring appeal reflects how culturally resonant stories can continue creating value over time. Similarly, FAST channels have created curated, always-on environments where catalogue content can continue to thrive through star-led and genre-based programming.
This multi-platform approach has very well transformed films into long-tail IP assets which are capable of generating recurring revenue across advertising, subscription, and syndication models.
The evolution of audience behavior is equally important. Nowadays, it’s more important to find what’s more relative than what’s recent as viewers are more influenced by mood, memories, and algorithmic suggestions than by release schedules. Even if a movie was released decades ago, it can trend alongside a newly released movie, if surfaced in the right context. Thoughtful packaging, whether through festival-based playlists, actor-driven collections, or genre clusters, allows catalogue content to remain dynamic and continuously discoverable. Shemaroo Entertainment has built extensive film libraries over decades and its focus has mostly been on recontextualizing content for the consumption of newer environments. This process doesn’t just include digitization and restoration, but also re-packaging of films as per platforms.
Syndication itself has evolved into a key growth driver. In perspective, when looking at the domestic market, curated content packages continue to find strong demand across broadcast and digital platforms. Meanwhile, in the international market, especially in markets like Middle East, North America and Southeast Asia, the appetite for Indian content is opening up new monetization avenues. Here, the ability to package and position catalogue content effectively becomes as important as the content itself.
Importantly, the need to re-package catalogue content does not diminish the role of new content. In fact, originals and fresh IP are essential to sustaining the long-term value of a film library because they act as discovery engines that bring audiences into the ecosystem, while catalogue content drives depth, retention, and repeat engagement.
This interplay between the “new” and the “known” is what defines a robust content strategy today. While new films generate spikes in consumption, catalogue titles offer familiarity and comfort. These are factors that are increasingly valuable in an era of content abundance and decision fatigue. This is also shaping our strategy, drawing value from both a deep catalogue assets and a growing focus on original IPs to strengthen long-term audience engagement and build more predictable revenue streams.
There is growing recognition that long-term value in entertainment will be shaped not only by how intelligently existing content continues to live, travel and find relevance, but also by how consistently new stories are created to renew that ecosystem. In that sense, film libraries and original IP are not parallel bets, but reinforcing engines of growth. For media companies, the opportunity lies in making these two forces work together, because that is increasingly where more resilient and predictable businesses are being shaped.
Note: The views expressed in this article are solely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect our own.
