The Bollywood story through film posters, lobby cards

January 2, 2014

BollywoodNew Delhi, Jan 2: Bollywood's unseen and lesser known stills capturing action, affection, portraiture and villainy through decades-old film memorabilia like cinema lobby and show cards is now put on show.

Curated by photographer Rahaab Allana as a tribute to 100 years of cinema, these curios are showing at an exhibition he has titled "Filmy Jagat: Shared Universe of Indian Cinema" at the Art Heritage Gallery here.

"The visual culture in India is vast. It was the end of the centenary and I felt in the end, we should talk about sub cultures rather than the mainstream activities going on all the time," Allana told PTI in an interview at the the opening of the exhibition.

The exhibition, says the photographer is an attempt by his team to bring to fore the sub culture of photography that existed in Hindi movies for four decades from 1940 to 1980s but still unknown to the masses.

"For instance, the lobby cards and show cards that would have originally been pinned up in cinema theatres, are some of the most acknowledged forms of photography. We have made them part of the exhibition," he says.

The focal point of the exhibition is a scrap book titled "Filmy Jagat" scribbled in hand on the cover.

Acquired by Allana a year ago, the pre-independence book paved the way for the exhibition. "Working around the streets of Mumbai and picking up material, I came upon this scrap book and I realize that a scrap book is an important sub-culture of photography. I realized that I would like to research it and found out that there was no publication or history around scrapbook so I thought to do one," he says.

Divided into different tropes and styles, the show highlights such film stills dating from a later period in Indian cinema, namely the 1960s-80s, an era that gave way to a global audience for Hindi films. Action, Affection, Portraiture and Villainy are therefore some of the recurring moments that were captured throughout film photography.

The curator of Alkazi Foundation for the Arts. Allana says he had no plans of putting up a show when he acquired the archives. "I had no thought while going for the archives. I acquired them I because liked them," he says.

Allana admits it was a challenging task to acquire all the archives. "It was challenging. Easy as everyone was dedicated to it but difficult for obvious reasons," the curator says.

He hopes that people visit the exhibition and they start "responding to it in their own capacity." Another reason which Allana had for putting up this exhibition was to show his support for offbeat cinema. "If we want to make that kind of cinema supporting this type of exhibition is good," he said.

The exhibition preempts a publication specific to the scrapbook, titled Filmi Jagat Scrapbook: Shared Universe of Indian Cinema, by Niyogi Books with a introduction by Shyam Benegal which will be released early next year. "Yes, we hope to release it in the first quarter of the year," says Allana.

Along with this a parallel exhibition titled Contemporary Artworks, where artists have responded to the "dynamic presence of Bollywood".

M F Husain's "Culture of the Streets", a portfolio of 20 signed photographs printed on Kodak C-Print with foil on photo paper shot in the 1980s, makes it clear that for Husain, the streets of Chennai with their enormous hoardings of South Indian movie stars were a part of the contemporary urban landscape and a part of the artist's visual vocabulary.

Younger artists like Bharti Verma's otherwise vacant streets and homes of New Delhi are dominated by a historic legacy of film posters that are suspended like a giant, silent backdrop in the distance. Sharmistha Dutta creates collages of 1970's film posters pasted on ruined, blood-splattered city walls, against which she arranges interesting and vivid portraits of the common man.

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News Network
May 20,2020

Mumbai, May 20: Doing his bit to help people in need during the ongoing coronavirus crisis, and the lockdown 4.0 phase, Bollywood actor Salman Khan has initiated ''Being Haangryy''- food truck facility to distribute, provide ration to needy.

To feed the affected people in Mumbai, the food truck with the words ''Being Haangryy'' written on it, was seen in Mumbai roads on Wednesday, where volunteers are providing huge bags of ration. A long queue of people was standing near the truck to get the essentials.

Many videos of the truck moving around the city providing ration kits to the people in need, surfaced on the internet from earlier this month.

However, the Bajrangi Bhaijaan actor has not announced this initiative himself on his personal social media accounts.

The Sultan actor is staying at his Panvel farmhouse with his nephew Nirvaan Khan and other family members ever since the lockdown was announced.

Earlier, the 54-year-old actor urged people to take up the ''Anna Daan'' challenge and donate to the underprivileged ones who are worst affected by the COVID-19 lockdown.

After urging people to take up the ''Anna Daan'' challenge, the actor posted a video on Twitter, that features him and Iulia Vantur, Jacqueline Fernandez among others loading the bags filled with ration on to a truck.

Khan actively posts videos on his social media handles to raise awareness about the importance of social distancing during COVID-19.

 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

@jacquelinef143 @vanturiulia @rahulnarainkanal @imkamaalkhan @niketan_m @waluschaa @abhiraj88

A post shared by Salman Khan (@beingsalmankhan) on

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News Network
January 9,2020

New Delhi, Jan 9: A Delhi court Thursday directed the makers of the Deepika Padukone starer feature film 'Chhapaak' to give credit to acid attack survivor Laxmi Agarwal’s lawyer in the movie.

Additional Civil Judge Pankaj Sharma said it was necessary that advocate Aparna Bhat's contribution is acknowledged.

"This Court is of the considered view that facts are indicative that the plea of the plaintiff for interim injunction is well-founded and it is necessary that her contribution be acknowledged by providing on the slide on the actual footage and the images, the line 'Aparna Bhat continues to fight the cases of sexual and physical violence against women' during the screening of the film.

"The said line on screen maybe with a rider that the same is with the court order," the judge said.

Advocate Bhat filed the application saying that despite representing Agarwal in courts for several years and helping in the movie-making, she was not given credit in the movie.

She said the filmmakers took her help in the entire process of writing and shooting the movie, but did not give the credit.

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News Network
February 26,2020

New York, Feb 26: Disney CEO Bob Iger, who steered the company’s absorption of Star Wars, Pixar, Marvel and Fox’s entertainment businesses and the launch of a Netflix challenger, is stepping down immediately, the company said in a surprise announcement Tuesday.

The Walt Disney Co. named as his replacement Bob Chapek, most recently chairman of Disney’s parks, experiences and products business.

“Did not see this coming -- Wowza,” tweeted LightShed media analyst Rich Greenfield.

Iger will remain executive chairman through the end of his contract on Dec. 31, 2021. Besides leading the board, Iger said he will spend more time on Disney’s creative endeavors, including the ESPN sports network, the newly acquired Fox studios and the Hulu and Disney Plus streaming services. He said he could not do that while running Disney on a day-to-day basis.

“It was not accelerated for any particular reason other than I felt the need was now to make this change,” Iger said on a conference call with reporters and analysts.

Iger steered Disney through the successful purchases of Lucasfilms, Marvel, Pixar and other brands that became big moneymakers for Disney. Last year, the top five movies in U.S. and Canada theaters were all Disney movies, including two from Marvel and one from Pixar. With the Dec. 20 release of the latest “Star Wars” movie, Disney had seven movies that each sold at least $1 billion in tickets worldwide last year.

Iger’s most recent coup was orchestrating a $71 billion purchase of Fox’s entertainment business in March and launching the Disney Plus streaming service in November. That service got nearly 29 million paid subscribers in less than three months. In a statement, Iger said it was the “optimal time” for a transition.

Pivotal Research Group analyst Jeffrey Wlodarczak said Iger had implied he would stay until his contract ended in 2021.

“On the other hand, they just successfully closed the Fox deal and had an unquestionably successful launch of Disney Plus so maybe he felt earlier was better to hand off the reins,” he said.

Colin Gillis, director of research at Chatham Road Partners, said the choice of Chapek seems solid because his parks division has had success.

Chapek said that while he has not led television networks or streaming services, his background in consumer-oriented businesses should help. Chapek and Iger both stressed that Disney would continue on the direction it had already been taking.

Disney is facing challenges to its traditional media business as cord-cutting picks up, meaning less fees from cable and satellite companies to carry Disney networks such as ABC, ESPN and Freeform. Disney’s own streaming services require the company to forgo money in licensing revenue, although the company is betting that money from subscriptions will eventually make up for that.

In the short term, Disney parks in Hong Kong and Shanghai, China, remain closed because of the coronavirus outbreak. In a CNBC interview, Chapek said the outbreak may be a “bump in the road,” but he said the company could weather it given “affinity for the brand.”

Iger told CNBC he had no plans to stay with Disney beyond next year.

Iger’s appointment as CEO in 2005 had been accompanied by controversy and protest from dissident shareholders Roy E. Disney and Stanley Gold. But he has come to be seen as a golden-boy top executive, and even someone who could run for president.

Iger told Vogue in 2018 that he had started seriously exploring a run for president because he is “horrified at the state of politics in America today,” but the Fox deal stopped his plans. Oprah Winfrey told Vogue that she “really, really pushed him to run.”

Iger, a former weatherman, joined ABC in 1974, 22 years before Disney bought the network.

At ABC, Iger developed such successful programs as “Home Improvement,” “The Drew Carey Show,” and “America’s Funniest Home Videos” and was instrumental in launching the quiz show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.” He was also criticized for cancelling well-regarded but expensive shows such as “Twin Peaks” and “thirtysomething.”

Since Iger became CEO, Disney’s stock price has risen fivefold. Its stock fell more than 2% in extended trading following the announcement, on top of a broader market selloff on virus fears during regular trading.

Iger, 69, was the second-highest paid CEO in 2018, as calculated by The Associated Press and Equilar, an executive data firm. He earned $65.6 million. The top earner was Discovery’s David Zaslav who earned $129.5 million.

Susan Arnold, the independent lead director of the Disney board, said succession planning had been ongoing for several years.

Chapek, 60, is only the seventh CEO in Disney history. Chapek was head of the parks, experiences and products division since it was created in 2018. He was previously head of parks and resorts and before that president of consumer products.

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