Bangladeshi Film Posters

These posters appeared as part of the Oitij-jo Festival on the South Bank earlier this year, celebrating art, culture, craft and music from Bangladesh.

They were huge, billboard size hand painted replicas of film posters, created by Sitesh Kumar Sur.
The posters were commissioned by photographer Shahidul Alam for a project where he took portraits of ageing film stars using these as the backdrops;  they depicted movies they were once famous for starring in. It was his response to the declining Bangladeshi film industry, Dhallywood (in reference to the capital city Dhaka). 

The artist Sitesh has been painting professionally since 1985 - it takes him and his team two days to complete a film poster and he paints them to commission.

I love them, though sadly the creation of posters in this way is a dying artform.
I just hope Sitesh is still going by the time I have saved up enough for him to paint one for me!