"Kumar uncle, my grandfather's lost film Kutty —the 1995 Tamil classic about the orphaned boy and his pet monkey—is nowhere. Not on streaming. Not in archives. I have one week to submit my restoration project."

Meera's face fell. Then Kumar smiled. "But I kept a copy. Not digital. Not HD. A 35mm print in my storeroom, wrapped in gunny sacks."

They spent three nights hand-cranking the film through a rusted viewer, frame by frame. Meera filmed each frame with her 8K camera, then spent 72 hours upscaling, denoising, and color-correcting.