AN EXHIBITION featuring iconic scenes from Bollywood blockbuster films is to be staged in Manchester.

It will feature 40 stills from famous Bollywood movies through the decades along with descriptions of the stars pictured and the story behind the film.

Many of the stills were used by Indian sign painters to create huge billboards advertising films which became a feature of Indian street life.

The exhibition, at The Contact Theatre on Oxford Road, draws on the stills archive of the Kamat Foto Flash organisation in Mumbai.

It will chart the history of the action stills from their heyday in the 1970s and 80s to their transformation into digital photography.

Manchester University academic Dr Rajinder Dudrah has curated the exhibition.

He said: "I think this is a fascinating tale about the global rise of Bollywood. It will provide mainstream, as well as south Asian, audiences a means through which they can find out about the key elements of Bollywood cinema and how it evolved in the UK and its revelance to the wider music and film scene today."

The exhibition will open on November 24 and run until March 28 next year.