Bombay

Bombay film poster for sale.

Featured here for sale is an original Bollywood poster of the 1995 cult Hindi film directed by Mani Ratnam that starred Arvind Swamy and Manisha Koirala in lead roles.

Originally released in Tamil, Bombay (1995) was also dubbed in Hindi and Telugu. The phenomenal success of the film made it the most acclaimed Tamil film of the 1990s, with its Hindi dubbed version breaking records for box office collections.

Bombay (1995) was a massive commercial as well as critical success and was screened at several international film festivals (including the Philadelphia Film Festival in 1996). It became one of the highest grossing films of the Chennai film industry upon its release.

The film bagged numerous awards such at the annual National Film Awards and Filmfare Awards, besides clinching several international awards as well such as the 1995 Edinburgh International Film Festival (Scotland) award and the 2003 Jerusalem Film Festival (Israel) award.

The film is ranked among the top 20 Indian films in the British Film Institute’s rankings, making this Bombay film poster, highly collectible!

Printed and circulated during the first release of the film in theaters (somewhere in 1995), this Bombay film poster was originally designed for publicity of the film but never ended up being used.

This old Tamil movie poster was originally designed as a photographic collage by a Bollywood poster art studio in Bombay. A still photograph of Manisha Koirala hugging Arvind Swamy with her palm resting on his chest is seen at the bottom. The top of this Bombay film poster features a religious riot scene, essential to the plot of the movie.

The background of this original Bollywood poster is minimal white. The title appears as a simple outline over the white background, with a red underline below. A translation of the title in a similar color scheme is seen in Devanagari Hindi as well at the bottom.

This Bombay film poster is an excellent example of brand sponsorship and insertion into a movie poster. A logo of Lipton Taaza Tea is seen under “Presented By” at the center, with the product description “Strong, Fresh Tea.”

The soundtrack album of Bombay (1995) was composed by maestro A.R. Rahman, who bagged his fourth consecutive Filmfare Best Music Director Award for his brilliant soundtrack that sold over 15 million units.

The album gave Indian cinema unforgettable tracks such as “Hamma Hamma” sung by A. R. Rahman & Remo Fernandes, “Kehna Hi Kya” sung by Chithra & A.R. Rahman and “Tu Hi Re” sung by Hariharan & Kavita Krishnamurthy.

The theme of the film caused considerable controversy due to its depiction of inter-caste relationships and religious riots. As such, the film was banned in Singapore and Malaysia upon release. Such was the historical impact of the film that a book was written on it by author Lalitha Gopalan, which was published by BFI Modern Classics in 2005.