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A walk through celluloid Prof Vilas Patil

Prof Vilas Patil is a movie buff with a difference - he collects the world’s rarest movies and yes, his collection of video cassettes, CDs and DVDs stands at over 5,000 and is still growing

Ashish Jadhav

The National Film Archives of India (NFAI), the country’s premier film archive has preserved most films produced in India. Indians are known to be movie buffs and some have a collection that would make any Hollywood director jealous. Meet Professor Vilas Patil, a movie buff who has a staggering collection of the world’s rarest movies.
Professor Patil has been fond of cinema from childhood. "Many a time I have bunked school to watch movies." As a youngster he had a hobby of collecting film strips. He would watch these films on a white curtain by shining a torch on the strip in a dark room.
"My father was also a lover of movies," says Patil. What sets his collection apart is that he collects only those movies which are considered classics and masterpieces in the world of cinema.
He has rare movies which he claims no one in the country possesses. Ronald Colman’s ’Double Life’, director Peter Brook’s ’Lord of the Flies’ and Spencer Tracy’s ’Inherit the Wind’ are some of the classics in his collection.
His non-English titles include ’Postman in the Mountain’ a Chinese film and ’The Bicycle Thief’ an Italian movie besides others.
Patil started collecting these rare movies during the VHS era on tapes. His collection is not restricted to English and Eurpean films alone. He also boasts a wide array of regional language films besides a rare Marathi movie collection.
Patil’s spacious flat in Dream Presidency apartments off Apte Road is teeming with video cassettes, VCDs and DVDs. Be it rare silent movies or old classics, it is there in Patil’s house. His younger son who stays in the US is continuously on the lookout for masterpieces for his father.
"The US has preserved even the silent era films which they produced way back in the 1900s. In India we are rarely able to preserve our celluloid masterpieces," says Patil.
Patil’s choice of movies is simple - it needs to be rare, only then does it find a place in his collection. In April this year he arranged a special film show. He showed a few Korean films to Dr Shriram Lagoo and Nilu Phule, both veteran actors and D M Mirasdar, a well-known Marathi writer.
His collection has swelled to 5,000 but he is still not resting. He is still searching for movies like ’Visit’, a British film, ’Blow hot blow cold’, ’Highway 3.1’, besides a rare French film on Nepolian Bonaparte.
Patil is not one to keep his treasure under wraps. "If someone is looking for a masterpiece and doesn’t know where to procure it from, he can come to me. I will help him find the print," he says.
Patil has also written books including his autobiography. Patil who is 67, is thinking of handing over his treasure of movies to an organisation with one condition -- they make available his collection to movie connoisseurs.

His old classics
Ronald Colman’s ’Double Life’
Peter Brook’s ’Lord of the Flies’
Spencer Tracy’s ’Inherit the Wind’
Vittoria Tesicca’s ’Yesterday, Today, Tommorrow
An old classic, ’To be or not To be’
Paul Muni’s, ’I am Fugitive’
Paul Muni’s ’Life of Emil Zola’
Paul Muni ’s ’Story of Louis Pasteur’