Neecha Nagar

*Neecha Nagar*
Neecha Nagar
	Poster
Directed by	Chetan Anand
Written by	Khwaja Ahmad Abbas
Story by	Hayatullah Ansari
Produced by	Rashid Anwar ; A. Halim
Starring	Rafiq Anwar; Uma Anand; Kamini Kaushal; Rafi Peer; Hamid Butt; Zohra Sehgal
Cinematography	Bidyapati Ghosh
Music by	Ravi Shankar
Production; company	India Pictures
Release date	29 September 1946; (Cannes Film Festival)
Running time	122 minutes
Country	India
Language	Hindi

Neecha Nagar

Neecha Nagar (transl. Lowly City) is a 1946 Indian Hindi-language film, directed by Chetan Anand, written by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas and Hayatullah Ansari, and produced by Rashid Anwar and A. Halim. 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 Anwar, Kamini Kaushal, Murad, Rafi Peer, Hamid Butt, and Zohra Sehgal. Neecha Nagar (Lowly City) was a Hindi film adaptation in an Indian setting of Russian writer Maxim Gorky's 1902 play The Lower Depths.

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.^[2] It is the only Indian film to be ever awarded a Palme d'Or.^[3] Ironically, the film was never released in India.^[4] However the film was telecasted on Doordarshan, (India's national broadcaster) in 1980s.

Overview

It was based on a Hindi story, Neecha Nagar, written by Hayatullah Ansari, which in turn was inspired by Gorky's The Lower Depths. It took an expressionist look at the gulf between the rich and poor in society.^[5]^[6]

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

Cast

Rafiq Anwar as Balraj
Uma Anand as Maya
Kamini Kaushal as Rupa
Murad as Hakim Yaqub Khan Sahab
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 Balraj's brother

Soundtrack

The music of the film was composed by Ravi Shankar with lyrics by Mammohan Anand and Vishwamitra Adil.

"Utho Ke Hame Waqt Ki Gardish" - chorus
"Kab Tak Gahri Raat Rahegi" - Lakshmi Shankar
"Birha Ki Aag" - Geeta Dutt
"Dil Mein Samaake" - N/A
"Ek Nirali Jyot Bujhi Hai" - N/A
"Haiya Ho Haiya" - N/A
"Hum Rukenge Bhi Nahi" - N/A
"So Na O Nanhi" - Lakshmi Shankar

Awards

1946 Cannes Film Festival

Grand Prix du Festival International du Film

Citations

^ "Celebrating Zohra Segal". Google.com. 29 September 2020. Retrieved 29 September 2020.
^ Grand Prix du Festival International du Film (1939–54)
^ "Revisiting Neecha Nagar, The Only Indian Film to Win Palme D'Or at Cannes". The Quint. 16 July 2021. Retrieved 16 March 2022.
^ "Everything You Need to Know About Neecha Nagar - 1st Indian Movie to Make It to Cannes in 1946". India Times. 17 May 2016.
^ History will never forget Chetan Anand Archived 20 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine 13 June 2007.
^ Maker of innovative, meaningful movies The Hindu, 15 June 2007.

References

Neecha Nagar at the New York Times
Remembering Chetan Anand and Neecha Nagar, Hindustan Times, 29 September 2007

External links

Neecha Nagar at IMDb
Neecha Nagar on YouTube

[1] "Celebrating Zohra Segal". Google.com. 29 September 2020. Retrieved 29 September 2020.

[2] Grand Prix du Festival International du Film (1939–54)

[3] "Revisiting Neecha Nagar, The Only Indian Film to Win Palme D'Or at Cannes". The Quint. 16 July 2021. Retrieved 16 March 2022.

[4] "Everything You Need to Know About Neecha Nagar - 1st Indian Movie to Make It to Cannes in 1946". India Times. 17 May 2016.

[5] History will never forget Chetan Anand Archived 20 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine 13 June 2007.

[6] Maker of innovative, meaningful movies The Hindu, 15 June 2007.

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v t e Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or
1939–1975	Union Pacific (1939) No festival held (1940–1945) Brief Encounter (1946) The Last Chance (1946) The Lost Weekend (1946) María Candelaria (1946) Men Without Wings (1946) Neecha Nagar (1946) Pastoral Symphony (1946) The Red Meadows (1946) Rome, Open City (1946) Torment (1946) The Turning Point (1946) Antoine and Antoinette (1947) Crossfire (1947) The Damned (1947) Dumbo (1947) Ziegfeld Follies (1947) No festival held (1948) The Third Man (1949) No festival held (1950) Miracle in Milan (1951) Miss Julie (1951) Othello (1951) Two Cents Worth of Hope (1952) The Wages of Fear (1953) Gate of Hell (1954) Marty (1955) The Silent World (1956) Friendly Persuasion (1957) The Cranes Are Flying (1958) Black Orpheus (1959) La dolce vita (1960) The Long Absence (1961) Viridiana (1961) O Pagador de Promessas (1962) The Leopard (1963) The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) The Knack ...and How to Get It (1965) The Birds, the Bees and the Italians (1966) A Man and a Woman (1966) Blowup (1967) Festival cancelled while in progress (1968) if.... (1969) MASH* (1970) The Go-Between (1971) The Mattei Affair (1972) The Working Class Goes to Heaven (1972) The Hireling (1973) Scarecrow (1973) The Conversation (1974) Chronicle of the Years of Fire (1975)
1976–2000	Taxi Driver (1976) Padre Padrone (1977) The Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978) Apocalypse Now (1979) The Tin Drum (1979) All That Jazz (1980) Kagemusha (1980) Man of Iron (1981) Missing (1982) Yol (1982) The Ballad of Narayama (1983) Paris, Texas (1984) When Father Was Away on Business (1985) The Mission (1986) Under the Sun of Satan (1987) Pelle the Conqueror (1988) Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989) Wild at Heart (1990) Barton Fink (1991) The Best Intentions (1992) Farewell My Concubine (1993) The Piano (1993) Pulp Fiction (1994) Underground (1995) Secrets & Lies (1996) The Eel (1997) Taste of Cherry (1997) Eternity and a Day (1998) Rosetta (1999) Dancer in the Dark (2000)
2001–present	The Son's Room (2001) The Pianist (2002) Elephant (2003) Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004) L'Enfant (2005) The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006) 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007) The Class (2008) The White Ribbon (2009) Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010) The Tree of Life (2011) Amour (2012) Blue Is the Warmest Colour (2013) Winter Sleep (2014) Dheepan (2015) I, Daniel Blake (2016) The Square (2017) Shoplifters (2018) Parasite (2019) No festival held (2020) Titane (2021) Triangle of Sadness (2022) Anatomy of a Fall (2023) Anora (2024)

v t e Maxim Gorky's The Lower Depths (1902)
Films	Souls on the Road (1921 Japanese) The Lower Depths (1936 French) Neecha Nagar (1946 Hindi) Night Inn (1947 Mandarin) The Lower Depths (1957 Japanese)