This week's film pick is Sagina Mahato, released in August 1970 and directed by Tapan Sinha. Dilip Kumar stars as the titular Sagina Mahato, "a man who drank like a fish, smiled like an angel, fought his enemies like a demon and loved his comrades like a primitive God." The Rudrajit Mookherjee Collection contains a promotional booklet for the film (reference EAP127/9/1092), written in both Bengali and English.

After instigating a strike over the improper dismissal of a fellow worker, Sagina Mahato unwittingly finds himself lauded as a champion of worker's rights. This position puts him in conflict with the factory foreman and with other labour movement leaders. Industrial unrest, corruption and power struggles all lead to a dramatic courtroom finale....

Alex 
 

As I catalogue the cinema booklets, I have come across two popular characters created by the great Bengali writer Upendrakishore Ray: Goopy Gyne and Bagha Byne. The pair first appear in the book gupi gain o bagha bain (part of the Jadavpur University School of Cultural Texts and Records Main Collection, Reference EAP127/1/1/45 if you would like to view it), and later in a film of the same name adapted from Ray's story by his grandson, Satyajit Ray.

Goopy and Bagha are both aspiring musicians but, unfortunately, neither of them have any musical talent. Their singing and drumming are so terrible they are both banished, and they meet in a forest. Miserable and afraid, they start performing in an effort to stave off their growing fear of the encircling gloom. The noise attracts the attention of a group of ghosts who are fasinated by their playing. The chief of the ghosts grants them three powers: they can clap their hands to conjure up food and drink; they are given a pair of magic slippers which can transport them wherever they wish; and their music now causes such awe in listeners that it immobilises them! 

Goopy and Bagha put these powers to good use through three popular and award-winning films: goopy gyne o bagha byne, hirak rajar deshe and goopy bagha phire elo. The images in this post come from booklets produced to promote the films.

 
Alex   

Last month we received material from only one project: 'Faces drawn in the sand': a rescue project of Native Peoples' photographs stored at the Museum of La Plata, Argentina - major project.

Led by Dr Irina Podgorny, this project built on the work of an earlier pilot project that successfully identified and re-located 'forgotten collections' within the Museum of La Plata. The major project created microfilm and digital images of 11 Collections. All the material is photographic and include glass plate negatives, celluloid film, glass lantern slides and albumen prints. They are quite amazing. Some of the originals are cracked or damaged because of their age and the project team has done a great job making good quality copies. It was difficult choosing only a few images to show in this post. Here are three:

 

This project is now finished and the full Collections available for access.

Lynda