Mohammed Aslam Fakih, 75

In place of a recent Tom Cruise, a not-so-recent Abhishek Bachchan is strutting towards us. Two hours before the day's first show of 'Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning', the sole screen at Regal Cinema is playing a grainy trailer of the 2012 action flick 'Players'. It's the only thing Mohammed Aslam Fakih has on 35mm that makes Simplex X-L whirr to life. Like a vintage car, the tall, retired six-decade-old analogue projector makes a comforting old sound each time its 75-year-old "mechanic" Aslam Fakih loops the film reel through its top and bottom rollers, animating the gears, soundhead and other parts whose names he didn't know when he first entered Regal's flip-switch-filled projection room as an apprentice on Independence Day in 1970.

"I miss using my limbs," smiles the analogue-watch-sporting projectionist even as both man and machine gear up for a special evening in the push-button digital age.

On July 26, just before Simplex X-L projects legendary director Kamal Amrohi's 1949 spine-tingler 'Mahal' on to Regal's screen part of Film Heritage Foundation's (FHF) film projection in practice workshop, the spotlight would be trained on Aslam Fakih instead of the other way around. The 75-year-old SSC pass Richard Burton fanboy -- who has spent half a century spanning Alfred Hitchcock to Christopher Nolan working at Regal -- is among nine faceless projectionists from across the country who have been nominated for a unique lifetime achievement award. Organized by FHF to honour the unsung technicians who have wound, rewound, oiled and toiled behind rays of light in cinemas for decades, the first-of-its-kind ceremony--which will see chief guest Naseeruddin Shah presenting a cash prize of Rs 50,000 each to three long-haul projectionists -- includes names such as Tardeo's 62-year-old Dara Mistry, the long-defunct New Empire's happy-go-lucky former projectionist, and Kolkata's Sukumar Ghosh.

The idea came from Shivendra Singh Dungarpur of FHF who would keep looking over his shoulder at the rays of light coming from the projection room as a child while bingeing back-to-back movies with his grandma, Usha Rani, in the stalls of a Patna cinema hall. Much like the young protagonist of the Italian classic 'Cinema Paradiso', Dungarpur was spellbound watching the projectionist at work during curiosity-induced interval-time trips to the projector room where he would sometimes see a man rushing in to grab a few cans of print and race off with them to another cinema on his bicycle.

"Till the early 2000s, you couldn’t screen a film on celluloid without a projectionist," says Dungarpur, who will never forget Khogse, a projectionist at Pune's FTII whose "projection was perfect when he was drunk" and M K Bangarappa aka Bangari who had screened films like Bergman’s 'Persona' and Kurosawa’s 'Rashomon' for the villagers in Karnataka's remote Heggodu village.

Keen to give them their due, FHF ran a social media campaign calling for nominations from around the country. Those who wished to nominate a projectionist had to download a form, fill in the details of the projectionist, how long and where he had worked and why they were nominating him. FHF then set up a selection committee comprising cinematographer and photographer Hemant Chaturvedi who has been travelling all over India for the last few years photographing single screen cinemas, acclaimed filmmaker Ashim Ahluwalia and Roosi Modi, the owner of close to 70 cinemas across India including Mumbai's Strand, Excelsior and New Empire who started as a projectionist himself. Spanning Kolkata to Kerala, the shortlisted nominees include National Film Archive of India's P A Salam and Lakhan Lal Yadav of Raipur's Raj Talkies who have spent five decades projecting celluloid.

For 62-year-old nominee Dara Mistry - a Girgaon bachelor whose earthy tongue pronounces Sean Connery as Shane Connery - the evening will mark his first time inside a single screen since Parsi New Year of 2014. Half an hour past that March midnight before Navroz, the gates that this doorkeeper-turned-projectionist used to open for a living had closed permanently. Mistry stepped out of Fort's New Empire theatre after the last show of 'The Pirates Of The Caribbean' to a notice announcing the closure of the century-old cinema inside which he had operated a projector called Century for 33 years. "That was 'the end'," laughs Mistry, now a Rs 12000-a-month-earning catering shop hand who sometimes watches old Dharmendra or Dileep Kumar starrers on his touchscreen phone after retiring to his projector-room-sized rental home.

"I can't afford to catch movies outside anymore," says Mistry, who became an office boy following the shutdown of New Empire.

"I had no experience in electricals. I learnt to check the fuse on the job," says Mistry.

Dara Mistry, 62

The Australian cockatiel is the first thing we notice when we visit Mohammed Aslam Fakih’s tiny one-room tenement at Tapia Mansion in Bhuleshwar. Perched inside a cage, the grey-crowned bird begins to chirp relentlessly, until we acknowledge its presence.

“He loves the attention,” 75-year-old Fakih says. The bird, he tells us, just turned up on the window sill of the home one day, and has “refused to leave”. Unlike his pet bird, Fakih who is a film projectionist with Regal Cinema, is self-effacing.

Working at the iconic Colaba theatre for the last 53 years, he prefers to reply in monosyllables. The only time he seems animated is when we mention movie reels. Fakih joined Regal as part of an apprenticeship on August 15, 1970.

“They were playing Alfred Hitchcock’s Topaz at the time,” he remembers. “Back then, Regal would hardly screen any Hindi movies. People would only come to watch the latest Hollywood release.”

Working at the iconic Colaba theatre for the last 53 years, he prefers to reply in monosyllables. The only time he seems animated is when we mention movie reels. Fakih joined Regal as part of an apprenticeship on August 15, 1970.

“They were playing Alfred Hitchcock’s Topaz at the time,” he remembers. “Back then, Regal would hardly screen any Hindi movies. People would only come to watch the latest Hollywood release.”

Fakih has helmed the projector ever since. His commitment to the movies has landed him a Lifetime Achievement Award nomination for Cinema Projection. The award has been instituted by the Film Heritage Foundation, and the winner will be announced at a function on July 26. The foundation works to conserve classic films and conducts workshops on the same.

Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, who helms Film Heritage Foundation, says that he introduced the award because he believes that the role of the projectionist is key to experiencing cinema. “My understanding of the craft of projecting comes from my childhood visits to my grandfather’s place; he employed one Chandi Mistry who would project films for us, so that we could watch them together as a family,” he tells us over a call,

“During my time at FTII [Film and Television Institute of India], I met another projectionist called Kokze... I think the wisdom he imparted has been invaluable.”

According to Dungarpur, the projectionist is always “this mystical creature”. “In the earlier days, we would look up at the projector in the movie theatre, but we’d never know of the man handling it. I felt it’s high time that we introduce these men to the people... they are truly the unsung heroes of cinema.”

Fakih, who is one of the two nominees from Mumbai, is a heavyweight in his own right because of his years of experience, as well as his mastery over projecting both, 35 and 70 mm reels. 

“After six months of training, I was taken on as full time staff. I was ecstatic,” recalls Fakih. The first movie he projected solo was Good Evening, Ms Campbell, featuring Gina Lollobrigida, an Italian actor known for her comic timing. “The film is one of my all-time favourites,” he smiles.

He can’t remember the actor who played the lead. We Google him up for Fakih. When we mention Telly Savalas, the name immediately registers.

Savalas, he says, was one the most famed villains in the Bond movies, playing Ernst Stavro Blofeld in On Her Majesty’s Service. 

The 1973 martial arts film Enter The Dragon was the longest running movie under Fakih’s reign as a projectionist. “It ran for 35 weeks!” he says. “People were crazy about Bruce Lee. There were no empty seats and the line for the tickets would spill over into the main Causeway market.”

Movie goers, at the time, were notorious for their “bomabom”. “If the film reel would get stuck... the audience would swear at us and create a ruckus. Today, people are a lot calmer and more subdued,” he thinks.

Though age is catching up with him, Fakih’s romance with the movies has far from ended. His shift, on the day we visit, was to begin at 3 pm; he will stay till the last show that ends post midnight. “As long my hands and legs are moving, I will continue doing what I love.”

Fakih was one of the projectionists, when Regal Cinema ran the cult classic Enter the Dragon in 1973