Thiruvananthapuram: Tracing our roots is always a special experience as it gives meaningful insights to ourselves. It helps to know how far we reached and realise the struggle behind the success. The National Film Archive of India's (NFAI) exhibition of old movie posters, organised at Kanankakkunnu Palance near Nishagandhi theatre as part of the 20th International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK), is a rewind of history of Indian cinema.
The multi-media exhibition consists of 78 revamped posters of old movies from the period 1913 to 1977. The oldest among the collection was the poster of Dadasaheb Phalke’s silent movie Raja Harishchandra, released in 1913. The exhibits also include Franz Osten's 'Shiraz', a silent movie released in 1928, P.V. Rao's 1931 flick 'Martanda Varma', 'Sant Tukaram', a 1936 Marathi movie directed by V. Damle and S. Fatehlal, V. Shantaram's 'Aadmi' (1939), and 'Meera', a 1945 Hindi movie by Ellis R. Duncan.
The 'Martanda Varma', an adaptation of a novel published by Kamalalaya Book Depot., is the first Indian movie that faced a copyright case when its publishers filed a lawsuit against the its producers for failing to get the rights. The poster of 'Shiraz', the 1928 silent movie about Mughal emporer Shajahan and his wife Mumtaz, which released in the United States and Germany, and 'Sant Tukaram', the first ever film to run in a single theatre for more than a year, are a few in the collection.
Posters of eight Malayalam movies, including 'Adimakal', 'Chidambaram', 'Adhyapika', 'Amma Ariyan', 'Mukhamukham', 'Kummatti', and John Abraham’s Tamil movie 'Agraharathile Kazhuthai' are also exhibited.