Rupban
Rupban (Bengali: রূপবান) is a 1965 East Pakistani Bengali-language black-and-white film written and directed by Salahuddin. Actors included Sujata, Mansur, and Chandona.
| Rupban | |
|---|---|
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| Directed by | Salahuddin |
| Written by | Salahuddin |
Release date | 1965 |
| Country | East Pakistan (current day Bangladesh) |
| Language | Bengali |
The film had a production budget of Pakistani ₨ 150,000.
Description
In the early 1960s, the story of Rupban was very popular in Jatras or open-air folk stage dramas. On the other hand, Bengali movies were struggling in box office due to the competition with big-budget Urdu and Hindi films. Director Salahuddin, who directed 3 Bengali films previously, used the popularity of the Rupban story to revive the market of Bengali films. He watched the Jatra and identified the reasons why it was so popular. And then, he directed the film accordingly. It worked tremendously. The film was so successful, they had to prepare 17 prints to distribute were the regular was 4-5 prints per film. This film solely changed the course of the film industry of the then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and revived the Bengali films with the heavily successful stream of folk-based films.[1]
References
- Onusurjo, Nabeel (September 14, 2017). "নেপথ্য কাহিনি : রূপবান". The Daily Ittefaq. Retrieved September 20, 2021.
Further reading
- van Schendel, Willem (2009). A History of Bangladesh. Cambridge University Press. p. 155. ISBN 978-0-521-86174-8.
- Hoek, Lotte (2014). "Cross-wing Filmmaking: East Pakistani Urdu Films and Their Traces in the Bangladesh Film Archive". BioScope. 5 (2): 108. doi:10.1177/0974927614547989. S2CID 154148790.