Hiralal Sen is credited with making the first advertising film and first political documentary in India. However not much is known about this man. Director Arun Roy’s film Hiralal is a biopic on the life of this iconic man.

The poster and the trailer of the film were launched recently in the presence of the director and the cast of the film consisting of Saswata Chatterjee, Kinjal Nanda, Anuska Chakroborty, Shankar Chakraborty, Arna Mukhopadhyay, Tannistha Biswas, Partha Sinha, Adhikary Koushik, and producer Indrajit Roy.

Hiralal Sen was born in present-day Bangladesh in 1866. Hiralal Sen grew up in a wealthy family and was obsessed with still photography. He became interested in motion pictures when he saw a movie at Kolkata’s Star Theatre in 1898. Sen imported a camera from England and, with his brother Motilal, set up the Royal Bioscope Company to produce films. Creativity and commerce boomed for a few decades and the company churned out documentaries, advertisements, and filmed scenes from theatre productions. But Sen’s poor business acumen soon came in the way, causing the company to fold in 1913. A cancer diagnosis resulted in his premature death in 1917. Shortly before that, a fire at the warehouse where all his films were stored destroyed his life’s work.

Kinjal Nanda plays the role of Hiralal Sen, Saswata Chatterjee plays Jamshedji Framji Madan, Anuska Chakraborty will be seen as Hemangini, Kharaj Mukherjee as Girish Ghosh, and so on.

The team of Hiralal did not paste any posters on the walls as they were torn down or people spit on them. That would be a disgrace to the legendary personality. Hence, the team did not paste any posters for promoting the film.

According to the director, “The film will be very important for the Bengali audience as they are unaware of the works done by Hiralal Sen. He made films even 10 years before Dada Saheb Phalke. Dada Saheb Phalke did that in 1910. However, due to misinformation Dada Saheb Phalke is considered the pioneer of Indian cinema. This film will bring many unknown truths to the forefront”.

The film is eyeing for release on 5^th March.

Priyanka Dutta