Shivendra Singh Dungarpur

Shivendra Singh Dungarpur
Born	(1969-08-25)25 August 1969 Patna, Bihar
Occupation	Film director, producer
Years active	1994 – present

Shivendra Singh Dungarpur (born 25 August 1969) is an award-winning filmmaker, producer, film archivist and restorer. Following a successful career as a maker of ad-films and documentaries, he has established the Film Heritage Foundation in 2014.

Early years

Shivendra Singh Dungarpur belongs to the royal family of Dungarpur State, an Indian princely state with its capital in the town of Dungarpur, Rajasthan. His grandfather was the last ruling Maharaja of Dungarpur and his uncle was the cricketer and sports administrator, Raj Singh Dungarpur. Shivendra was born in Patna, Bihar, near the home of his maternal grandparents, the Maharaja and Maharani of Dumraon.

Shivendra studied at The Doon School in Dehradun, graduating in 1987. He then went on to do a degree in History (Hons) from St. Stephen's College, Delhi. Later in life, after a stint as assistant director to Gulzar, he enrolled at FTII, Pune, to study film direction and script writing.

Career in cinema

Shivendra was first introduced to cinema by his maternal grandmother, Maharani Usha Rani of Dumraon, who had a discerning eye for classical cinema. It was through her that he first received exposure to classics like Pakeezah. His grandfather introduced him to Chaplin, screening films like The Gold Rush and Modern Times on his home projector.

This early exposure morphed into deep interest in the medium, an interest which he pursued while studying history (another abiding interest) at St. Stephen's College. After graduating with a degree in history from St. Stephen's, Shivendra moved to Mumbai and began working as an assistant director with Gulzar, who he continues to regard as his mentor. Subsequently, Shivendra enrolled in the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) at Pune to study film direction and script writing. He graduated from the Institute in 1994.

Dungarpur Films

Shivendra Singh Dungarpur started his production house Dungarpur Films in 2001.^[1] The initial focus of the venture was on advertising films and corporate films, which was later expanded to include short films and documentaries. The company has produced or directed over 500 commercials and produced several documentaries and short films, often for corporate or public purposes. These include award-winning short films on leprosy awareness, rural welfare projects, and on the efforts of the Indian Army in Kashmir. Several of his awards have been for films made on these topics and for outstanding commercial advertisements.

Celluloid Man

Shivendra's first feature length film was the 2012 documentary Celluloid Man, a film about P. K. Nair, India's pioneering film archivist who was the founder-director of the National Film Archive of India. Shivendra began filming the documentary in 2010 and it was completed in May 2012. The film premiered at the Il Cinema Ritrovato Festival in Bologna, Italy on June 26, 2012. The commercial release of the film was held across theatres in India on May 3, 2013, to coincide with the anniversary of the release of Dadasaheb Phalke's film Raja Harishchandra exactly one hundred years previously.

The documentary film has travelled to 50 film festivals in India and abroad, including the Telluride Film Festival, the 50th New York Film Festival, the International Film Festival, Rotterdam, the Hong Kong International Film Festival, the Edinburgh International Film Festival, the Shanghai International Film Festival, the International Film Festival of India (in Goa), the Mumbai Film Festival and the Goteborg International Film Festival. It was the opening film at the Sierra Leone International Film Festival, 2013, and the Kyiv International Documentary Film Festival, 2013. The film won two National Awards at the 60th Indian National Film Awards. These were the award for the Best Historical / Biographical Reconstruction and the Award for Best Editing that was presented to Irene Dhar Malik.

Awards

His first feature length documentary Film "Celluloid Man" (2012) has won two National Awards in India at the 60th National Film Awards for the Best Historical / Biographical Reconstruction and for Best Editing in 2013.^[2]

He also won the ”Nestor The Chronicler" award for the best archival film for Celluloid Man at the XII Kyiv International Documentary Film Festival 2013, Ukraine.

Shivendra Singh was given the Bimal Roy Memorial Emerging Talent Award for his film "Celluloid Man" at a ceremony on 18 October 2013

2014 – Shivendra Singh Dungarpur was awarded the Special Jury Award for Celluloid Man at the 13th edition of the Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF) 2014 on 9 February 2014.

He has won several awards for his advertising films as well.

2007 – IDPA (Indian Documentary Producers' Association) Gold for the best television commercial of the year for the VIP "Adjust" film

2007 – IDPA Silver in the television commercial category for the Havells "Rimpoche" film

2007 – IDPA Silver in the television commercial category for the Greenply "Court Case" film

2006 – IDPA (Indian Documentary Producers Association) Gold for the best television commercial of the year for the HSBC "Caterpillar" film

2006 – IDPA Silver in the television commercial category for the State Bank of India Life Insurance "Vase" film

2005 – IDPA Gold for the best television commercial of the year for the Times of India film

2005 – IDPA Gold for the best public service campaign for the Indian army in Kashmir

2003 – Indian Documentary Producers' Association (IDPA) Gold for the best public service film for leprosy awareness

Cinema restoration and preservation

Shivendra Singh is a patron of the British Film Institute and was a donor for the restoration of Alfred Hitchcock's silent film, The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog.^[3] He facilitated the restoration of the Indian film, Uday Shankar's Kalpana (1948),^[4] by Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Foundation, that was premiered in the Cannes Film Festival Classic section in 2012.^[5] In 2013, Shivendra collaborated with the World Cinema Foundation again for the restoration of the 1972 Sinhalese film "Nidhanaya" directed by eminent Sri Lankan filmmaker Dr. Lester James Peries. The restored version of the film was premièred at the Venice International Film Festival, 2013.

He is a supporting member of the Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna, Italy along with the legendary Pathé film company. In 2014, he founded Film Heritage Foundation a not-for-profit organization based in Mumbai, dedicated to the conservation, preservation and restoration of the Indian cinematic heritage. He has been invited to be a member of the Artistic Committee of the Il Cinema Ritrovato Festival in Bologna that includes amongst others Alexander Payne, Thelma Schoonmaker, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Jean Douchet, Aki Kaurismäki, Peter Becker and Kevin Brownlow. He is also a member of the Honorary Committee of the Nitrate Picture Show, George Eastman House’s Festival of Film Conservation.

Film Heritage Foundation

Film Heritage Foundation is a not for profit organization set up by Shivendra Singh Dungarpur in 2014. Recognizing the urgent need to preserve India's cinematic heritage, the foundation is dedicated to supporting the conservation, preservation and restoration of the moving image and to develop interdisciplinary educational programs that will use film as an educational tool and create awareness about the language of cinema.

References