Osian search engine for arts, cinema

The vast scope of art in its various forms – cinema, paintings and drawings, photography, print-making and others – can hardly be captured in any one place. Yet, Neville Tuli, Director of Osian Cinefan, has tried just that. Tuli, who is the proprietor of a number of arts and culture-related ventures, has put together the research conducted by his team over the last 20 years in the works of art and cinema into a new search engine – theosianama.com, which would be available for the public free of cost in March. It has been envisioned as a one-stop destination for all things art, including memorabilia, old film posters, letters, photographs and information on fine arts, films, antiquity, crafts, catalogues and newspaper articles. Tuli informed that as many as 500,000 newspaper articles have been archived in the Site. The engine has pooled in information and visual material of almost 95 per cent of all Hindi films produced in the country and the team at Osians is working to cover other regional films, such as Bengali, Gujrati, Kannada, Punjabi and Tamil, among others. Also, memorabilia representing personalities such as Orson Welles, Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Clark Gable, Satyajit Ray and many more, will be featured on the Site.