BOLLYWOOD BIOGRAPHY

Silent films (1890s–1920s)

The history of cinema in India extends back to the beginning of the film era. Following the screening of the Lumière and Robert Paul moving pictures in London (1896), commercial cinematography became a worldwide sensation and by mid-1896 both Lumière and Robert Paul films had been shown in Bombay.

Silent films (1890s–1920s) :-

In 1897, a film presentation by Professor Stevenson featured a stage show at Calcutta's Star Theatre. With Stevenson's encouragement and camera Hiralal Sen, an Indian photographer, made a film of scenes from that show, namely The Flower of Persia (1898). The Wrestlers (1899) by H. S. Bhatavdekar, showing a wrestling match at the Hanging Gardens in Bombay, was the first film to be shot by an Indian and the first Indian documentary film.

The first Indian film released in India was Shree Pundalik, a silent film in Marathi by Dadasaheb Torne on 18 May 1912 at Coronation Cinematograph, Bombay. Some have argued that Pundalik was not the first Indian film, because it was a photographic recording of a play, and because the cameraman was a British man named Johnson and the film was processed in London.

History of Indian cinema

Advertisement in The Times of India of 25 May 1912 announcing the screening of the first feature film of India, Shree Pundalik by Dadasaheb Torne

A scene from Raja Harishchandra (1913), the first full-length Indian motion picture.

Producer-director-screenwriter Dadasaheb Phalke, the "father of Indian cinema".

AVM Studios in Chennai, India's oldest surviving film studio.

The second full-length motion picture in India was produced by Dadasaheb Phalke, Phalke is seen as the pioneer of the Indian film industry and a scholar of India's languages and culture. He employed elements from Sanskrit epics to produce his Raja Harishchandra (1913), a silent film in Marathi. The female characters in the film were played by male actors. Only one print of the film was made, for showing at the Coronation Cinematograph on 3 May 1913. It was a commercial success. The first silent film in Tamil, Keechaka Vadham was made by R. Nataraja Mudaliar in 1916.

The first chain of Indian cinemas, Madan Theatre was owned by Parsi entrepreneur Jamshedji Framji Madan, who oversaw production of 10 films annually and distributed them throughout India beginning in 1902. He founded Elphinstone Bioscope Company in Calcutta. Elphinstone merged into Madan Theatres Limited in 1919, which had brought many of Bengal's most popular literary works to the stage. He also produced Satyawadi Raja Harishchandra in 1917, a remake of Phalke's Raja Harishchandra (1913).

Raghupathi Venkaiah Naidu from Machilipatnam was an Indian artist and a film pioneer. From 1909, he was involved in many aspects of Indian cinema, travelling across Asia. He was the first to build and own cinemas in Madras. He was credited as the father of Telugu cinema. In South India, the first Telugu and Tamil bilingual talkie Kalidas was released on 31 October 1931. Nataraja Mudaliar established South India's first film studio in Madras.

Film steadily gained popularity across India. Tickets were affordable to the masses (as low as an anna (one-sixteenth of a rupee) in Bombay) with additional comforts available at a higher price.

Young producers began to incorporate elements of Indian social life and culture into cinema, others brought new ideas from across the world. Global audiences and markets soon became aware of India's film industry.

In 1927, the British Government, to promote the market in India for British films over American ones, formed the Indian Cinematograph Enquiry Committee. The ICC consisted of three Brits and three Indians, led by T. Rangachari, a Madras lawyer. This committee failed to support the desired recommendations of supporting British Film, instead recommending support for the fledgling Indian film industry, their suggestions were shelved.

Talkies (1930s–mid-1940s) :-----

Ardeshir Irani released Alam Ara, the first Indian talkie, on 14 March 1931. Irani later produced the first south Indian talkie film Kalidas directed by H. M. Reddy released on 31 October 1931. Jumai Shasthi was the first Bengali talkie. Chittor V. Nagaiah, was one of the first multilingual film actor/singer/composer/producer/directors in India. He was known as India's Paul Muni.

In 1933, East India Film Company produced its first Telugu film, Savitri. Based on a stage play by Mylavaram Bala Bharathi Samajam, the film was directed by C. Pullaiah with stage actors Vemuri Gaggaiah and Dasari Ramathilakam. The film received an honorary diploma at the 2nd Venice International Film Festival.

On 10 March 1935, another pioneer film maker Jyoti Prasad Agarwala made his first film Joymoti in Assamese. Jyoti Prasad went to Berlin to learn more about films. Indramalati is another film he himself produced and directed after Joymoti. The first film studio in South India, Durga Cinetone was built in 1936 by Nidamarthi Surayya in Rajahmundry, Andhra Pradesh. The 1930s saw the rise of music in Indian cinema with musicals such as Indra Sabha and Devi Devyani marking the beginning of song-and-dance in Indian films. Studios emerged by 1935 in major cities such as Madras, Calcutta and Bombay as filmmaking became an established craft, exemplified by the success of Devdas. directed by an Assamese film maker Pramathesh Baruah. In 1937, Kisan Kanhiya directed by Moti B was released, the first colour film made in India. The 1940 film, Vishwa Mohini, is the first Indian film to depict the Indian movie world. The film was directed by Y. V. Rao and scripted by Balijepalli Lakshmikanta Kavi.

Swamikannu Vincent, who had built the first cinema of South India in Coimbatore, introduced the concept of "Tent Cinema" in which a tent was erected on a stretch of open land to screen films. The first of its kind was in Madras, called Edison's Grand Cinemamegaphone. This was due to the fact that electric carbons were used for motion picture projectors. Bombay Talkies opened in 1934 and Prabhat Studios in Pune began production of Marathi films meant. R. S. D. Choudhury produced Wrath (1930), which was banned by the British Raj for its depiction of Indian actors as leaders during the Indian independence movement. Sant Tukaram, a 1936 film based on the life of Tukaram (1608–50), a Varkari Sant and spiritual poet became the first Indian film to be screened at an international film festival, at the 1937 edition of the Venice Film Festival. The film was judged one of the three best films of the year. In 1938, Gudavalli Ramabrahmam, co-produced and directed the social problem film, Raithu Bidda, which was also banned by the British administration, for depicting the peasant uprising among the Zamindars during the British raj.

The Indian Masala film—a term used for mixed-genre films that combined song, dance, romance etc.—arose following World War II.

 During the 1940s cinema in South India accounted for nearly half of India's cinema halls and cinema came to be viewed as an instrument of cultural revival. The partition of India following independence divided the nation's assets and a number of studios moved to Pakistan. Partition became an enduring film subject thereafter.

After Indian independence the film industry was investigated by the S. K. Patil Commission. Patil recommended setting up a Film Finance Corporation (FFC) under the Ministry of Finance. This advice was adopted in 1960 and FFC provide financial support to filmmakers.

 The Indian government had established a Films Division by 1948, which eventually became one of the world's largest documentary film producers with an annual production of over 200 short documentaries, each released in 18 languages with 9,000 prints for permanent film theatres across the country.

The Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA), an art movement with a communist inclination, began to take shape through the 1940s and the 1950s. Realist IPTA plays, such as Nabanna (1944, Bijon Bhattacharya) prepared the ground for realism in Indian cinema, exemplified by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas's Dharti Ke Lal (Children of the Earth) in 1946. The IPTA movement continued to emphasise realism and went on to produce Mother India and Pyaasa, among India's most recognisable cinematic productions.