From the classic "Mughal-e-Azam" to rare Fearless Nadia films, city-based National Film Archive of India (NFAI) today said it has acquired about 2,500 film posters of Indian cinema.
The collection includes nearly 1,500 Hindi movie posters, in addition to a number of Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam ones.
These posters date back from as early as 1942 to recent times and the repertoire showcases the evolution of film publicity, covering various techniques of poster-making, NFAI said in a press release issued here.
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The highlight of the acquisition is a rare six-sheet poster of KA Asif's magnum opus "Mughal-e-Azam" (1960).
The poster consists of six separate sheets in 10ft by 5ft dimensions. It's an offset print of a hand-painted poster.
The release read the poster achieves the astonishing feat of conveying volumes about the film and has everything - from long-shot depictions of the war sequence to a colourful snapshot of the Sheesh Mahal sequence - in beautiful brush strokes.
To strike a balance with grandeur of these two depictions, the poster also features two intimate portraits, displaying an emotional moment between Akbar (Prithviraj Kapoor) and his son, heir Salim (Dilip Kumar) and another of a chained Anarkali (Madhubala).
Another highlight of the acquisition is posters of 90 films, starring Amitabh Bachchan, which includes one of his earliest movie "Sanjog" (1971) and his unreleased film "Zamaanat".
In addition to this, Hindi films like "Roti" (1942), "Anmol Ghadi" (1946), "Atom Bomb" (1947), "Pugree" (1948), "Sant Namdev" (1949), "Apna Desh" (1949), "Veer Ghatoktach" (1949), "Deedar" (1951), "Alam Ara" (1956), "Dilli Ka Thug" (1958), "Phagun" (1958), "Manzil" (1960) and "Razia Sultana" (1961) are a part of this collection.
The posters are of 20ft by 30ft and 30ft by 40ft dimensions.
The fresh acquisition also includes posters featuring Fearless Nadia, for the films "Sher-e-Baghdad" (1946), "Stunt Queen" (1947), "11 o'clock" (1948) and "Shamsherbaaz" (1953).
Also included are over 120 wall posters of Tamil films, 150 recent films and 600 South Indian language films (mainly Kannada and Telugu).
"This has been a significant addition to NFAI's ever growing collection of film related material. We appeal to all film lovers to come forward and provide films and film-related material so that it can be preserved for future generations," Prakash Magdum, director of NFAI, said.
All these posters have been acquired from different sources and collectors.
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