Decades of Hindi / Bollywood Cinema
Client:
Film Companion
Tools:
Linearity Curve,
Procreate,
Photoshop
I was asked by Film Companion, India's leading English language entertainment journalism platform to create this illustration for Future Generali's annual report in the form of a coffee table book/ collectible book. For 2022, the theme for their report was Decades of Hindi Cinema/Bollywood.
They were looking at seven decades (1947-2020) captured through seven chapters that would give a narrative and historical sense of the movement of Hindi cinema over the years. It took into account the dominant as well as the counter-cultural voices that existed in the cinema made that decade. Every chapter was complemented with an artwork poster that best depicts the decade. A total of 8 illustrators were commissioned for this project. I was assigned the decade 2010-2022 and asked to interpret the decade.
I decided to highlight how diverse Bollywood has been in the recent decade by focusing on the variety of genres emerging in the OTT platforms as well as cinema in general with a focus on stories with substance and strong & vulnerable female leads. Films that best represented this idea in my opinion: Gangubai, Raam Leela, Queen, The Dirt Picture, Badhai Ho, Uri, Lunchbox, Barfi, & Newton.
After a few discussions, we opted for a composition that celebrates strong female leads and captures the essence of femininity, eliminating smaller elements from other movies. The movies represented here are Ram Leela, The Dirty Picture, and Raazi. Later, I was also asked to add Kangana Ranaut's movie Queen to the composition.
The final llustration approved and published by the clients for Future Generali's annual report.
An alternative version that pays tribute to the essence of femininity depicted in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's "Ram Leela" and honors Ravi Varman's brilliant cinematography.