Sridevi

 

Beautiful Sridevi on the sets of... can anyone name the film?! 

Possibly Gair Kanooni... 

Rare stills of the cast of Gurudev: Sridevi, Anil Kapoor, Rishi Kapoor, Kader Khan, Kiran Kumar, Danny Denzongpa

 A newspaper scan of stills from the film Gurudev. 

Sridevi's pigtails in Gurudev

Sridevi didn't have the title role, but she had yet another double-role in Gurudev. 

Released on 3 September 1993, Gurudev was a typical 80s action masala film that released in 1993! Hear me out, when the movie was conceived and launched in 1988, it had Sridevi (in a double role as Priya/Sunita/Rosy), Anil Kapoor (as Gaurav "Guru"), and Rishi Kapoor (as Inspector Dev). It was produced and initially directed by Vinod Mehra (who passed away during production), with Raj Sippy completing the film. The stars of the film bandied together to ensure the film was released as it had so many production issues. 

Anil Kapoor and Sridevi on the sets of Gurudev (1993)

Anil Kapoor and Sridevi on the sets of Gurudev 

Rishi Kapoor and Sridevi in Amsterdam, in the film Gurudev! 

Released on September 3, 1993, the film opened huge! But... 

We have a huge archive of images of the entire cast and features on the film in the archive here. 

Sridevi in Gurudev

Sridevi's look for a song and dance routine in Gurudev. 

The ear clip and short wig, leather jacket and makeup... well... It's a look. I'll say that... 

And that's all I'll say.... 

I mean, Sri's still cute. 

Released on September 3, 1993, the movie with Sridevi, Anil Kapoor and Rishi Kapoor opened huge, but the film directed by Vinod Mehra [who tragically passed away mid-production and the film was completed by his friend].... was no great shakes. 

RD Burman's songs were fun. Aasha Bhosle sang all the songs for Sridevi. 

 

Gurudev: Sridevi, Anil Kapoor, Rishi Kapoor with actor turned director Vinod Mehra

Gurudev: Sridevi, Anil Kapoor, Rishi Kapoor with actor turned director Vinod Mehra. 1993's big release. 

Filmfare digs out rare photos of Sridevi from their vast archive: Can Filmfare digitally save its vast archives?

With the slow death of print media in film journalism, Filmfare is the last standing bastion of archiving Bollywood. Circulation is down, ad sales aren't what they used to be, the staff numbers are down, the freelance budget is near non-existent, the photography budget hasn't changed in eons... btw this is true of almost all magazines, be it a rag in New York or New Delhi. 

The Bollywood fandom is strong - it'll take a collective to fund a process to scan and archive all the issues - as Vogue did painstakingly. 

Condé Nast officially launched the digital Vogue Archive in December 2011. It made every single issue of American Vogue, from its founding debut issue in December 1892 up through the current issues, fully searchable and accessible online. 

The digitization project took approximately two years to complete (spanning 2009 to late 2011) as over 2,700–2,800 issues were scanned, translating to roughly 400,000 pages and over 100,000 to 400,000 images, advertisements, covers, and articles indexed by designer, model, photographer, and garment type. 

Condé Nast has never publicly disclosed the total financial expenditure spent to execute the digitization project. However, industry estimates for archival scanning, high-resolution color capture, OCR text extraction, and granular tagging put large-scale database builds of this magnitude in the multi-million dollar range.

When Condé Nast first introduced the standalone archive, consumer subscriptions were priced at US$1,575 per year. In subsequent years, individual prices were increased to $3,250 per year for commercial professionals (fashion designers, stylists, and industry researchers). Institutional Access (ProQuest): Today, standard access is largely provided through the database provider ProQuest. Academic institutions, universities, and public libraries pay annual licensing fees to provide access to their students and patrons for free.

Now, imagine if they could do the same with Filmfare? 

Filmfare was launched on March 7, 1952, by J. C. Jain and published by Sahu Shanti Prasad Jain and his wife Rama Jain of The Times Group (Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd.) in Bombay. Its debut issue featured screen icon Kamini Kaushal on the cover.  Filmfare has been continuously published for 74 years. While the publisher has not released an exact master count of every issue printed, the total can be estimated based on its publication frequency changes over the decades:

1952–2000s (Fortnightly): For over 50 years, Filmfare was published as a bi-weekly (24 issues per year), generating roughly 1,300–1,400 regular issues.

2000s–Present (Monthly & Special Editions): In later years, the print schedule shifted primarily to a monthly cadence (12 issues per year), alongside annual special issues (such as the Filmfare Awards collector issues, regional editions in South India, and special style/glamour releases).

Accounting for regular fortnightly runs, monthly issues, and regional/special collector editions, Filmfare has published approximately 1,600 to 1,800 total issues. 

To put every published work, image and credit into a digital archive... a Sisyphean task as the volume is vast and the budget - nonexistent! 

One fine day, a passionate fan with deep interest and deeper pockets will have to do the deed.... 

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