Bullet Proof Anand aims to bring back the trend of hand-painted posters

One of the things that was so interesting about Haseen Dillruba was that the poster imitated the pulp fiction nature of hand-painted posters of days gone by. Hand-painted posters were a major craft back in the day before they were replaced by photographs and photoshop. Today, hand-painted posters are objects you see in museums and art exhibitions. Now, director Alok Sharma aims to bring back the dying art of hand-painted posters with his Sanjay Mishra, Anshuman Jha and Jaaved Jaaferi starrer short film Bullet Proof Anand. The director has roped in the legendary artist Mustajab Shelle to make a hand painted poster for the short. Mustajab Shelle has been described in the media as Hindi pulp art’s last man standing.

“I was pretty sure I wanted the poster of this short to be hand-painted, as a homage to the Hindi crime novels of the 1970s. India’s very own Robert E McGinnis, Shelle Mustajab was the artist who painted these novel covers for over 3 decades – from Surendra Mohan Pathak to Ved Prakash Sharma, you name it. I travelled all the way to Shelle Sahab’s residence in Amroha, UP, convinced him to come out of retirement to create this poster for Bullet Proof Anand and he obliged. I hope this brings back the trend of hand-painted posters, an art long forgotten,” said Alok Sharma.

As for the film, Bullet Proof Anand is a unique tribute to Bruce Lee and Rajesh Khanna’s pathbreaking film, Anand. The Bollywood gangster trope from the 90s will be brought back with this film, according to media reports.