Film Hi Film

Classic black and white movie posters for sale: Film Hi Film (1983).

Featured here is an actual surviving original Bollywood poster of the 1983 Hindi drama directed by Hiren Nag that starred Pran in the lead role.

Produced by Shahab Ahmed and presented under his Shahab International Production Associates banner, Film Hi Film (1983) also starred Ramesh Deo, Seema Deo, Shyam Awasthi, Mohan Choti, Raj Kishore, Birbal, Furqan (debut) and Beena Banerjee in supporting roles.

The film was dedicated to the indomitable spirit and passion of thousands of cine artists and technicians whose films remained unfinished. As such, it contained rare footage of several unreleased/unfinished films such as Raj Kapoor’s Bahurupiya / Behrupiya (1964), which was started before Mera Naam Joker (1970) and Reporter which featured a talking dog. Khuda Gawah (1978) an unreleased film starring Amitabh Bachchan in a double role, Naya Mandir, Shikwah (1954) starring Dilip Kumar and Nutan and Jahan Mile Lo were other rare shelved films captured in Film Hi Film (1983).

As such, the footage from these unreleased films featured Parveen Babi, Rajesh Khanna, Dev Anand, Amitabh Bachchan, Saira Banu, Dharmendra, Guru Dutt, Sunil Dutt, Helen, Raj Kapoor, Raaj Kumar, Manoj Kumar, Rajendra Kumar, Madhubala, Mehmood, Nutan, Mala Sinha and Zaheeda.

Film Hi Film (1983) told the story of the struggles faced by a kind hearted man called Sethji Gyan Chand (Pran) with Bollywood dreams. He sets out to make his very first film but is taken advantage of every step of the way. Midway through the production stage, his production unit demands a large sum of money and Gyan Chand, having invested all his own funds, turns to his finance partners for help but to no avail. He is determined to finish his film and fulfill his creative passion but his wife wants him to abandon his starry dreams and instead follow the footsteps of her father and open a sugar mill. Even after his wife walks out on him, Gyan Chand presses on mortgaging everything he owns in order to finish his film project.

Printed and circulated during the first release of the film in theaters (somewhere in 1983), this Film Hi Film poster was originally designed and printed for publicity of the film but never ended up being used.

This classic black and white movie poster was originally designed in mixed media format, using both photographic collage as well as brush painting techniques by a Bombay based Bollywood poster art studio called Venus Art.

The poster showcases actors in black and white close up photos arranged like a film reel. The reel on the left features the biggest superstars of Indian cinema who’s unfinished and unreleased films were featured in the movie. On the right, the black and white reel depicts images of the star cast of the film, starting from the lead actor Pran on the top right.

In the center, in between the two reels, the title of the film appears in three different languages, namely English, Devanagari Hindi and Urdu. The titles appear inside maroon speech bubbles and the background is black, making the arrangement stand out.

The soundtrack album of Film Hi Film (1983) was composed by music maestro Bappi Lahiri, while lyrics were written by Indeevar. It featured the memorable title song, “Jeene Ki Ek Ada Hain” sung by Kishore Kumar.