Neecha Nagar
Neecha Nagar () is a 1946 Indian Hindi-language film, directed by Chetan Anand, written by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas and Hayatullah Ansari, and produced by Rashid Anwar. It was a pioneering effort in social realism in Indian cinema and paved the way for many such parallel cinema films by other directors, many of them also written by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas. It starred Chetan Anand's wife Uma Anand, with Rafiq Ahmed, Kamini Kaushal, Murad, Rafi Peer, Hamid Butt, and Zohra Sehgal. "Neecha Nagar" (Lowly City) was a Hindi film adaptation in an Indian setting of Maxim Gorky's 1902  play "The Lower Depths". "Neecha Nagar" became the first Indian film to gain recognition at the Cannes Film Festival, after it shared the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film (Best Film) award at the first Cannes Film Festival in 1946 with eleven of the eighteen entered feature films. It's the only Indian film to be ever awarded a Palme d'Or. Ironically, this film was never released in India. Overview. It was based on a Hindi story, "Neecha Nagar", written by Hayatullah Ansari, which in turn was inspired by Russian writer Maxim Gorky’s "The Lower Depths". It took  an expressionist look at the gulf between the rich and poor in society. "Neecha Nagar" is the debut film of actress Kamini Kaushal and for Ravi Shankar as a music director. Soundtrack. The music of the film was composed by Ravi Shankar with lyrics by Mammohan Anand and Vishwamitra Adil.