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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Archival images of Sridevi

Black and white pics of Sridevi over the years.

TBT from the Filmfare Archive: Unquestionably No.1

For a Throwback Tuesday, a look at a feature that ran as a cover story in Filmfare magazine back in July 1984! Just a few months into the industry, a series of hits with Jeetendra, it was all about Sridevi.  

Excerpt: 

The Cover Story

Unquestionably No.1

Every five years or so, an elaborate ritual takes place in Hindi moviedom. The reigning glamour queen abdicates her title in favour of a younger tinsel goddess. Such a transition took place recently. When Rekha was replaced by another actress from the South - Sridevi. The sensuous bombshell has grabbed the limelight.

Profiled by Nikhil Lakshman


“Sridevi,” says Rekha. “is number one. Give her six months more and she will redefine the rules of the industry.” The erstwhile glamour queen is not the only one. From movie moguls to top screenplay writers, from directors to superstars, the view is unanimous. A Greek chorus.

For less than eighteen months, this captivating gamine from NTR territory has clearly demonstrated her unbelievable box-office potential. And the price is Rs 12 lakhs.

No actress has ever shot up so swiftly. It took Hema Malini nearly four years to make the ascent. Rekha even with Mr B’s help took an identical period. And neither faced the cut-throat competition that Sridevi faces. Today, there are so many actresses in the race; Rati Agnihotri, Jaya Prada, Padmini Kolhapure, Dimple Kapadia, Meenakshi Seshadri, Moon Moon Sen.

July 16-31, 1984

So what makes Sridevi run? And number one?

The present power and glory is a far cry form the humiliation five years ago, when Solva Sawan was released. Though it was a good remake of that fine Tamil Film 16 Vayadinile, the movie flopped. As for Sridevi, despite a tantalising show of thigh - immortalised in that enchanting freeze frame when she wades across a river - and an on-par performance, the film’s failure instantly banished her from the Hindi movie scene. 

At about the same time, another actress from Andhra Pradesh was delighting audiences with her zest in Sargam. Ironically, that super-hit had little impact then on Jaya Prada’s career, which, thanks to her refusal to learn Hindi, and badly-conceived projects, like Lok Parlok, and Bawri, went into limbo.

Meanwhile, deeply hurt at the Solva Sawan episode, Sridevi worked hard at her craft in Hyderabad and Madras. As a child actress she had her debut at 5. As an adult, she zoomed to the top in the South. She could hold her own both in corny song’n’dance extravaganzas like Bobbulipuli and Premabhishekham as well as serious well-made films like Balu Mahendra’s Moondram Pirai. 

A Raghavendra Rao, the Telugu producer who is widely given credit for ‘creating’ Sridevi, recalls the sensation that “Bobbulipuli” was. “Whenever NTR - you must remember she was 16 and he was near lying 60 - and Sridevi came tougher on screen, a strange electricity passed…”

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Sadly - that's all we have from the scan. Hope to find the original to type up the rest.

Meanwhile, see an archive of all the Filmfare magazine covers Sridevi has graced over the past three decades here.