Indian cinema

india has one of the lasgest film industries in asia. Indian film industry is also well
known for producing the largest number of films in the world. It produces films in
various languages like hindi telugu tamil Bhojpuri india produces nearly 3000
celluloid films. Further classified into 1000 short films and 1659 feature films. a
provision was passed to allow full foreign direct investment in the film sector
which led major international media houses like century fox warner bros etc to
invest in indian films, importance of indian cinema most films produced in the post
independence era have shaped our identity as a nation cinema has helped us to
portray and understand socioeconomic and political existence of Indians there are
to types of cinema one for entertainment and other for showing realtities of day to
day life that is called alternate or parallel cinema. History of indian cinema the
lumiere brothers who are famous as the inventors of cinematograph brought the
concept of motion pictures to idnia the exhibited 6 soundelss short films in
Bombay which managaed to engross the audience the first film was titled coconut
fair and our indian empire, the Italian duo colorello and cornaglia who made an
exhibition in tents ate the azad maidan in Bombay started the next big venture they
were followed by short films like the death of nelson naahs ark etc, exhibited in
Bombay. The first motion venture by an indian was by harishchandra bhatavdekar
also known as save dada. He made 2 short films and exhibited them to the
audience. There were very few indian filmamakers notable amongs them was f b
thanawalla who made taboot procession and splendid new views of Bombay. Hira
lal sen was very well known for his piture indian life and scenes gradually the
market for these pictures increased and it created an urgent need for a cinema
house this need was fulfilled by major warwick who established first cinema house
in madras, later a wealthy indian businessman jamshedjee madan established the
elphinstone picture house in Calcutta universal studios established the first
Hollywood based agency in india 1916. The era of silent films. the era of 1910
1920 was dominated by silent films they were called silent films but they were not
totally mute and were accompanied by music and dance when they were being
screened in the theatres they were accompanied with live musical instruments like
sarangi table harmonium and violin first indo british collaboration for making a
silent movie was in 1912 by ng chitre and rg torney their film was titled pundalik.
Dadasaheb phalke produced the film titled raja harishchandra in 1913 made the
first indigenous indian silent film, he is known as the father of indian cinema
credited with films like mohini bhasmasur and satyavan savitri credited for making
the first box office hit titled lanka dahan. Film making got impetus by opening of
two film companies i.e. Kohinoor film company and dadasaheb phalkes Hindustan
cinema films company once films began making a decent amount of money the
govt imposed entertainment tax in calcuttta Bombay as this was the beginning of
cinema in india filmmakers explored several different subjects the most popular
subjects were mythology and history. Some writers and directors also picked up
social issues like v shanataram who made amar jyoti a film about womens
emancipation there were very few women filmmakers fatma begum was first
indian woman who produced and directed her own film titled bulbul e paristan the
first film controversy regarding censorship was over the film bhakti vidur which
was banned in madras. Several international collaborations were also made most
popular movies made in collaboration with Italy was madans nala damayanti
himanshu rai directed successful films like a throw of dice and prem sanyas used
indo german sponsorship. The epoch of talkies and colour films: the first talking
film was alam ara directed by ardeshir irani film has memorable songs by wm khan
who was indias first singer and his song de de khuda k naam par was thie first
recorded song in indian cinematic history, big banners like Bombay talkies new
thatres and prabhat emerged nad they were also responsible for coming of studio
system. First film to use audio system was pc baruas devdas experimentation led to
the coming of colour films like sarandhri made by prabhat which is the first indian
film films like kisan kanya being the first indidenously made colour film and was
produced by ardashir irani some distinctive films are: jbh wadia and homi wadia
hunter wali toofan mail Punjab mail flying rani there were first indian stunt films
had an actress of Australian origin macy evans who earned an indian nickname
fearless nadia, jbh wadia naujawan first film without any songs, premsagar first
south indian film, War ravaged 1940s 40s were a period of turmoil n indian poltics
and it was reflected in the films produced during that period fervor for
independence was displayed in the films like dahrti ke lal do ankhen barah haath
everal films were made on tragic love stories and fictional historical tales like
chandralekha lailamajnu sikander chitralekha etc, coming of age 1950s indian
cinema came of age in 1950s with the setting up of the central board of film
certification established to regulate the content of large number of films which
were being produced in north and south india, the trinity of hindi cinema dilip
kumar dev anand and raj kapoor came up during this period the first techni colour
film was made in 1953 by sohrab modi titled Jhansi ki rani, the first international
film festival of india was held in Bombay bimals roy do bigha zameen was the first
indian fiml to win an award at cannes film festival another famous film to win a
cannes award was satyajit rays pather panchali mother india was nominated in best
foreign language film category for Oscar award. Government of india instituted the
national film awards which was first given to the feature film shyamchi aai the best
short film awrd was given to mahabalipuram produced by jagat murari first film to
win te presidents gold medal was made by sohrab modi titled mirza ghalib. The
golden era : 1960s music industry became an integral part of the film fraternity.
Movies started using music. Some notables were jis desh me ganga behti hai
starring raj kapoor dev anands guide yash chopras waqt etc, this period witnessed
two wars 1962 and 1965 which became the subject of several nationalistic films,
notable were chetan anand haqeeqat Shakti samantas rajesh khanna starring
aradhana and raj kapooor starring sangamwith the establishement of the film
industry there was a need for an institution to train various people involved in the
complicated film process. This motivated the government to establish the film and
television institute of india in pune this institute trained writers diretors and actors
in their craft doyen of indian cinema and theatre dadasaheb phalke passwed away
and the dadasaheb phalke award for lifetime achievement was instituted in his
honour, the angry young man phase : prioed was dominated by need to produce
and direct film around the young men who were finding their feet in industrial
Bombay Amitabh bachan became the poster boy for most of these movies this can
be considered as the era of Amitabh bachan his successful movies zanjeer agnipath
amar akbar and Anthony etc another film is sholay that was the first ffilm to be
made on 70 mm scale, it breoke all records and was longest running film in
cinemas, phase of romantic cinema, 1980-2000 there was movies about social
issues romantic movies and family dramas were also getting a huge audience three
major actors of this period were anil kapoor Jackie shroff govinda they acted in
successful blockbusters like tezaab ram lakhan phool aur kante hum etc. late 80
saw the emergence of anti hero image through films like baazigar and darr which
launch the stardom of the khan trio, lpg in 1990s allowed for advanced technology
to come to india for eg my dear kuttichatan was indias first 3 d movie that was
made in Malayalam indian audience was introduced to another major technology
the dolby digital system, the parallel cinema: parallel industry always made hard
hitting movies whose purpose was to create good cinema this movement started in
regional cinema first with the production of mrinals bhuvan shome in 1969 opened
a wave of new cinema remarbkable movies focused on social problems like mother
india shree 420 there was plethora of institutions related to study of films that were
available to people like the national film archive of india foremost name in the
parallel cinema movement was of satyajit ray who made apu triology pather
panchali apur songsar and aparajito ritik ghatak who concerntrated on the problems
of the lower middle class through his films like nagarik ajantrik and meghe Dhaka
tara, parallel cinema moved towards bringing the role of women, several women
diretors became very famous, most notable were paranjpye chashme baddoor
sparsh kalpana lajmi and aparna sex some got recognition at the global level like
meera nair whose film salaam Bombay won award at cannes film festival. South
indian cinema : cinema of south india can be used to refere collectively to the five
film industries of south india the tamil the telugu the kannada the Malayalam and
the tulu film industries. Telugu and tamil film industries are biggest among them
telugu cinema produced several films, stories of epics like Ramayana and
mahabharat are very popular in Andhra Pradesh nt rama rao was famous from his
portrayals of the characters of Krishna rama shiva arjuna and bhima, film based on
social economic issue form a major component of south indian cinema plots
involving corruption prevalent social structures and its problems like
unemployment dowry remarriages violence on women etc, superstars include mg
ramachandran nt rama rao shivaji ganesan Gemini ganesan rajkumar
vishnuvardhan rajnikanth chiranjeevi Mahesh babu etc notable south indian
actresses include savitri jayasudha Lakshmi suhasini sridevi revathy shobhana
soundarya padmini jayalalitha Anjali devi etc, recent film controversies : one of
the most controversial films made by shekhar kapoor was titled bandit queen
censor board on the grounds of nudity obscene content banned this film, deepa
mehtas water portrayed the lives of widows and their exclusion from society this
was banned in cinema halls another movie by deepa Mehta titled fire which was
made in 1996 was banned by censor board on the ground of showing unnatural
lesbian relations between two sister in laws, films like madras café was banned in
sri lanka and parts of uk director anurag kashyap has courted many controversies
his film panch was banned by censor board as it was high on drug abus violence
and obscene language another film black Friday based on Mumbai bomb blasts
was stopped from release by the Bombay high court. Messenger of god a film by
baba ram Rahim created a chaos in north india kamal hasans vishwaroopam it
supposedly hurt their religious sentiments. Indian cinematography act of 1952, goi
instituted the indian cinematograph act 1952 to certify films, major function of this
act was to flesh out constitution and functioning of central board of film
certification or censor board of india, act provides for appointment of a chairman
of the censor board and a team of people to be appointed by cg, to help the
chairman in his functioning, the board has to examine the film and decide if the
film should not be exhibited on the grounds of offense, age group religious
denomination or political group, it also direct the applicant of a movie to make
modifications and excisions in the film before it can be given a certificate if
changes are not made censor board may refuse to sanction the film, certification of
films is a subject matter of the union the enforcement of the censorship lies with
state governments, the certification is done on the following basis: u universal
exhibition, a restricted to adult audience only there was an upgradation in the
cinematograph rules which added two or more certification categories to te existing
ones, they are ua unrestricted public exhibition subject to parental guidance for
children under the age of 12 years, s public exhibition restricted to specialized
audience like doctors engineers etc, establishment of film certification and
appellate tribunal created for hearing appeals. Cbfc the government body that
governs and directs censorship in india is called the central board of film
certification set up in 1950 under the name central board of film censors same was
changed under the act of 1952 it is directly under the directive of the ministry of
information and broadcasting head office is in Mumbai all these institutions
provide the certification to a film without which they cannot be screened in the
cinema theatres. Cbfc is a well structured ogranisation and it has a chairman and
governing members who are appointed by the govt through the ministry of
information and broadcasting, can be appointed for a term of three years or more
the members are usually famous or talented personalities from the film industry it
is necessary for all films to get a censor board certificate even the foreign films are
imported to india have to get a cbfc certification all the films that are dubbed from
one language to another have to get a fresh certificate to ensure that the language
change is not offensive. in any manner. The only exception to the cbfc certificate
are films made expecially for doordarshan as they are the official broadcaster for
the goi and they have their own set of rules for examining such films, cbfc
certification is not required for tv programmes and serials. Goi has constituted
shyam Bengal committee to lay down norms for film certification that take note of
best practices. It seems necessary that india should have a national film policy
because we have the worlds largest film producing industry