Neecha Nagar

Neecha Nagar
Directed by Chetan Anand
Produced by Rashid Anwar
A. Halim
Written by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas
Story by Hayatullah Ansari
Starring Rafiq Ahmed
Uma Anand
Kamini Kaushal
Rafi Peer
Hamid Butt
Zohra Sehgal
Music by Ravi Shankar
Cinematography Bidyapati Ghosh
Production
company
India Pictures
Release date
  • 1946 (1946)
Running time
 122 minutes
Country British India
Language Hindi-Urdu

Neecha Nagar (Hindi: नीचा नगर Nīcā nagar, English: Lowly City) is a 1946 Hindi-Urdu film, directed by Chetan Anand, written by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas and Hayatullah Ansari, and produced by Rashid Anwar. It was a pioneering effort in social realism in Indian cinema and paved the way for many such parallel cinema films by other directors, many of them also written by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas. It starred Chetan Anand's wife Uma Anand, with Rafiq Ahmed, Kamini Kaushal, Rafi Peer, Hamid Butt, and Zohra Sehgal.

Neecha Nagar became the first Indian film to gain recognition at the Cannes Film Festival, after it shared the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film (Best Film) award at the first Cannes Film Festival in 1946 with eleven of the eighteen entered feature films.[1] It's the only Indian flim to be ever awarded a Palme d'Or.

Overview

It was based on a Hindi story, Neecha Nagar, written by Hayatullah Ansari, which in turn was inspired by Russian writer Maxim Gorky’s The Lower Depths. It took an expressionist look at the gulf between the rich and poor in society.[2][3]

Neecha Nagar is the debut film of actress Kamini Kaushal and for Ravi Shankar as a music director.

Cast

  • Rafiq Anwar as Balraj
  • Uma Anand Maya
  • Kamini Kaushal as Rupa
  • Rafi Peer as Sarkar
  • S.P. Bhatia as Sagar
  • Hamid Butt as Yaqoob Chacha
  • Mohan Saigal as Raza
  • Zohra Sehgal as Bhabi
  • B.M. Vyas as Bhai

Awards

1946 Cannes Film Festival

Citations

References


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