1896: First screening of film at The Watson’s Hotel in downtown Mumbai by the Lumier brothers, who brought cinema from Paris to India.
· 1913: India’s first full length
feature film Raja
Harishchandra was made by
Dadasaheb Phalke
· 1930: Saw the advent of sound in
cinema. Alam Ara, produced by Adershir Irani of
Imperial studios was India’s first ‘talkie’ released in 1931.
· 1931: Noor Jehan was the first Indian
English film
· 1940s: saw the establishment of
Studios. Few studios such as Wadia Movitone, Bombay Talkies, Prabhat Studios to
name a few introduced organized film making - stars and technicians collected
regular pay packets, film budgets were controlled. It was a lucrative trade for
the Guajaratis
· World War II and India’s independence
in 1947 saw the emergence of social films
· Post Independence, young talents like
Guru Dutt(Aar Par, CID, Pyaasa, Kagaz ke Phool) Dev Anand(- Hare Rama Hare
Krishna and Jewel Thief), and Raj Kapoor(- Mera naam Joker, Bobby), understood
western cinema and the changing sensibilities of a free country. They
successfully blend this with the Indian culture and society and created
classics. Partition introduced new communities to the trade-Punjabis and
Sindhis from Lahore and who managed to sideline the Gujratis
· 1950s belonged to the musicals. RK
Studio’s Awara in 1951 was the first film to break the international barriers
and was dubbed in Turkish, Persian, Arabic and Russian
· Mehboob Khan’s Mother India was nominated for the Academy award
for the Best Foreign language Film in 1957
· 1959: Guru Dutt’s Kagaz ke Phool was the first cinemascope film of
Bollywood
· 1960s was the age of colour films and
it was established that it was here to stay. It was also during this time that
the film industry was fast gaining the dubious distinction of being a money
laundering opportunity, with a growing booty of black market profits.
Independent producers from the North lured stars away from studios offering
them more than their market value. The studio system collapsed and stars became
bigger than the film.
· The crass kitsch of the 80s gave way
to glitzy glamour in the 90s. Before the new millennium, Bollywood began
cleaning its act. Once again the business of streamlines.
· 2000: Bollywood is given an industry
status
· 2006: coporatisation of the industry
took place and studio system come back into existence.
· 2007: Hollywood Studios such as Sony
Pictures, Fox Star Studios, Walt Disney, started co-producing bollywood films.
· This era also saw technical advances
in areas such as Visual effects (VFX), animation etc. Films like Rajnikant’s
Robot, Roadside Romeo, Shah Rukh Khan’s Ra.One are examples
showcasing India’s capability. Ra.One had 3500 VFX shots in comparison james
Cameroon’s Avatar scored around 2700 shots.
· 2010-11: Global buyers start buying
bollywood films for Taiwan,
Korea, Germany, France, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Poland, Malaysia, China
and Belgium where there is no
Asian dominance
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