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Bengal

Seven-day exhibition on Uttam Kumar starts today

This shows that the popularity of the greatest actor Bengal has ever produced has not diminished even after 37 years of his death on July 24, 1980. The theme of the exhibition is 37. The posters of 
films acted in which Uttam acted along with lobby cards, booklets, record covers and magazines all numbering 37 will be displayed. The exhibition will remain open from 2 pm to 8 pm.

Along with posters, lobby cards and booklets were used to publicise the films. The audience used to buy lobby cards and booklets which contained the story of the film, names of the directors, producers, music composers and lyricists. The audience used to collect them and preserve them.

All the cinema houses had lobbies where the publicity materials were displayed and sold. Cinema Thek comprising Rohit Mukherjee, Subhendu Das and Sourav Mukherjee are trying to preserve 
the films’ publicity materials of the bygone era. Mukherjee said the main purpose of the organisation was to make the present generation acquainted with the film publicity materials.

“If we go through the lobby cards and booklets, we see how sincerely they were published,” said Mukherjee. The group intends to digitise the materials to make people, particularly the young generation have a taste of the past. The posters and other publicity materials that will be displayed at the exhibition belong to Rudrajit Mukherjee, an Uttam fan. Mukherjee has a collection of over 
300 posters, 1,700 booklets and 250 lobby cards.  He has in his possession the entire publicity materials of Satyajit Roy.

The lobby cards of Bengali feature films that include Agnishwar, Chiryakhana, Dhonni Meye, Nayak and Sade Chuattar will be displayed at the exhibition. The booklets of Raja Saheb, Iman Kalyan, Kankabatir Ghat, Dui Purush and Sagarika will be exhibited. 

The record covers of Anthony Phiringhee, Deya Neya, Amanush and a disc cut by Mahanayak which 
was published by Megaphone Records will be on display. Uttam had sung Rabindra Sangeet at cultural shows at Basushree cinema hall on Poila Baishak quite a number of times.

The posters of three Hindi films, Plot Number 5, Choti Si Mulakat and Deshpremi will be displayed along with the drama booklet of Shyamali where he had acted with Sabitri Chatterjee.

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