Original Copy

Alfred Talkies is a cinema in the Mumbai Central neighbourhood. Its owner, Najma, inherited the film theatre from her grandfather, who founded it in 1932. Anno 2015, the building is as flaking as the discoloured and scratchy film prints that are screened there. "You’re on a sinking ship", she suggests to her manager, when he again reports a box-office deficit. Original Copy is both the melancholy story about this old cinema where ice cream is still sold in the interval, and a portrait of Sheikh Rehman. This colourful painter - he smokes, shouts and curses - and his team make sure that there is a new billboard on the façade every week. Unlike his father, Rehman does not consider himself an artist, but a craftsman: "I draw what the audience wants to see": six-foot tall posters with heroes, villains, a sweet heroine, plenty of action and a little romance. In other words, Bollywood at its best.