Exhibition Marks Century of Indian Cinema


Kolkata: Celebrating a century of Indian cinema through posters, lobby cards, song booklets and magazine covers of mainstream and rare B-movies, the "Maya Mahal" exhibition began.

The 19-day exhibition provides an alternative history of Indian cinema and helps track the art of film publicity. It is set to conclude Jan 27.

The exhibition also showcases old stunt-based films, and brings to the public a gamut of paper artefacts from entrepreneur Priya Paul's personal collection.

The display includes song booklets of V. Shantaram's 1932 celluloid venture "Maya Machindra", as also posters and lobby cards of lesser known movies like India's first 3D movie "Chhota Chetan", starring Dalip Tahil.

Highlighting alternative genres, posters and publicity booklets of stunt movies like "Stunt Queen" (1947) and "Daaku Ki Ladki" (1933) were major crowd-pullers.

"I think the exhibits are unique. There are so many movies before our time including pre-Independent era films, particularly the stunt movies," remarked renowned Bangladeshi author Farah Ghuznavi.

Source: IANS