Calendar with Uttam Kumar's film posters to commemorate his 92nd birth anniversary

Kolkata: To commemorate the 92nd birth anniversary of Bengal's greatest matinee idol Uttam Kumar, a calendar containing posters of his films will be released on September 3.

This is the first time that such a venture has been undertaken. It is amazing that the popularity of Uttam Kumar among present day youth is going up and the retrospective of his films attract huge number of people.

Sudipta Chanda, a known film publicity material collector and secretary, Amit Kumar Fan Club, took the initiative to release the calendar. Uttam had acted in 187 feature films. Film posters in those days were made by hand.

The calendar features 24 film posters, covering a variety of popular films like Harano Sur, Dui Bhai, Shapmochan, Ogo Badhu Sundori, Saptapadi, Nayak, Abak Prithibi, Sagarika, Chirodiner, Antony Firingi, Dhanyi Meye, etc.

One gets to see the posters featuring Uttam Kumar and Suchitra Sen in Saptapadi, Harano Sur, Sagarika and Alo Amar Alo. Feature films like Chirodiner and Mon Niye, featuring Supriya Devi, have also been included.

Uttam had acted against Soumitra Chatterjee and the calendar features two of them in Jhinder Bondi and Stree. Music directors like Hemanta Mukhopadhyay worked in most of his films, while Ali Akhbar Khan scored the music for Rajodrohi, whose poster can also be seen in the calendar.

Directors like Satyajit Ray (Nayak), Tapan Sinha (Jhinder Bandi, Jatugriha), Ajay Kar (Saptapadi), Shakti Samanta (Ananda Ashram) and Bikash Ray (Marutirtha Hinglaj) did remarkable films with Uttam Kumar and the calendar features all of such films.

Sudipta Chanda said: "I grew up watching his films. I can recall my childhood memories through his films. I even remember watching Khoka Babur Prottabartan and Ogo Badhu Sundori on the big screen at Bharati Cinema, during it's re-release with my parents."