[edit] History

A scene from Raja Harishchandra (1913) – The first full-length motion picture.

A scene from the first motion picture of the Assamese film industry, Joymati (1935).

Devika Rani and Ashok Kumar in Achhut Kanya (1936).

Following the screening of the Lumière moving pictures in London (1895) cinema became a sensation
across Europe and by July 1896 the Lumière films had been in show in Bombay (now Mumbai).[11] The
first short films in India were directed by Hiralal Sen, starting with The Flower of Persia (1898).[12] The
first full-length motion picture in India was produced by Dadasaheb Phalke, a scholar on India's
languages and culture, who brought together elements from Sanskrit epics to produce his Raja
Harishchandra (1913), a silent film in Marathi. (Interestingly, the female roles in the film were played by
male actors.)[13] The first Indian chain of cinema theaters was owned by the Calcutta entrepreneur
Jamshedji Framji Madan, who oversaw production of 10 films annually and distributed them throughout
the Indian subcontinent.[13]
During the early twentieth century cinema as a medium gained popularity across India's population and
its many economic sections.[11] Tickets were made affordable to the common man at a low price and for
the financially capable additional comforts meant additional admission ticket price.[11] Audiences
thronged to cinema halls as this affordable medium of entertainment was available for as low as an anna
(4 paisa) in Bombay.[11] The content of Indian commercial cinema was increasingly tailored to appeal to
these masses.[11] Young Indian producers began to incorporate elements of India's social life and culture
into cinema.[14] Others brought with them ideas from across the world.[14] This was also the time when
global audiences and markets became aware of India's film industry.[14]
Ardeshir Irani released Alam Ara, the first Indian talking film, on 14 March 1931.[13] Following the
inception of 'talkies' in India some film stars were highly sought after and earned comfortable incomes
through acting.[13] As sound technology advanced 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 India's
films.[13] Studios emerged across major cities such as Chennai, Kolkata, and Mumbai as film making
became an established craft by 1935, exemplified by the success of Devdas, which had managed to
enthrall audiences nationwide.[15] Bombay Talkies came up in 1934 and Prabhat Studios in Pune had
begun production of films meant for the Marathi language audience.[15] Filmmaker R. S. D. Choudhury
produced Wrath (1930), banned by the British Raj in India as it depicted actors as Indian leaders, an
expression censored during the days of the Indian independence movement.[13]
The Indian Masala film—a slang used for commercial films with song, dance, romance etc.—came up
following the second world war.[15] South Indian cinema gained prominence throughout India with the
release of S.S. Vasan's Chandralekha.[15] 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.[15] The
partition of India following its independence divided the nation's assets and a number of studios went to
the newly formed Pakistan.[15] The strife of partition would become an enduring subject for film making
during the decades that followed.[15]
Following independence the cinema of India was inquired by the S.K. Patil Commission.[16] S.K. Patil,
head of the commission, viewed cinema in India as a 'combination of art, industry, and showmanship'
while noting its commercial value.[16] Patil further recommended setting up of a Film Finance Corporation
under the Ministry of Finance.[17] This advice was later taken up in 1960 and the institution came into
being to provide financial support to talented filmmakers throughout India.[17] The Indian government had
established a Films Division by 1949 which eventually became one of the largest documentary film
producers in the world with an annual production of over 200 short documentaries, each released in 18
languages with 9000 prints for permanent film theaters across the country.[18]
The Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA), an art movement with a communist inclination, began to
take shape through the 1940s and the 1950s.[16] A number of realistic IPTA plays, such as Bijon
Bhattacharya's Nabanna in 1944 (based on the tragedy of the Bengal famine of 1943), prepared the
ground for the solidification of realism in Indian cinema, exemplified by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas's Dharti
Ke Lal (Children of the Earth) in 1946.[16] The IPTA movement continued to emphasize on reality and
went on to produce Mother India and Pyaasa, among of India's most recognizable cinematic productions.
[19]

[edit] Golden Age of Indian cinema

A scene from Ritwik Ghatak's Nagarik (1952), considered Bengali cinema's earliest
intellectual art film.
Wide open eyes, a continual motif in Satyajit Ray's The Apu Trilogy (1955–1959).

Guru Dutt in Pyaasa (1957), for which he was the director, producer and leading actor.
Following India's independence, the period from the late 1940s to the 1960s are regarded by film
historians as the 'Golden Age' of Indian cinema.[20][21][22] Some of the most critically acclaimed Indian
films of all time were produced during this period. In commercial Hindi cinema, examples of famous
films at the time include the Guru Dutt films Pyaasa (1957) and Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959) and the Raj
Kapoor films Awaara (1951) and Shree 420 (1955). These films expressed social themes mainly dealing
with working-class urban life in India; Awaara presented the city as both a nightmare and a dream, while
Pyaasa critiqued the unreality of city life.[23] Some of the most famous epic films of Hindi cinema were
also produced at the time, including Mehboob Khan's Mother India (1957), which was nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film,[24] and K. Asif's Mughal-e-Azam (1960).[25] V.
Shantaram's Do Aankhen Barah Haath (1957) is believed to have inspired the Hollywood film The Dirty
Dozen (1967).[26] Madhumati (1958), directed by Bimal Roy and written by Ritwik Ghatak, popularized
the theme of reincarnation in Western popular culture.[27] Other mainstream Hindi filmmakers at the time
included Kamal Amrohi and Vijay Bhatt.
While commercial Indian cinema was thriving, the period also saw the emergence of a new Parallel
Cinema movement, mainly led by Bengali cinema.[23] Early examples of films in this movement include
Chetan Anand's Neecha Nagar (1946),[28] Ritwik Ghatak's Nagarik (1952),[29][30] and Bimal Roy's Two
Acres of Land (1953), laying the foundations for Indian neorealism[31] and the "Indian New Wave".[32]
Pather Panchali (1955), the first part of The Apu Trilogy (1955–1959) by Satyajit Ray, marked his entry
in Indian cinema.[33] The Apu Trilogy won major prizes at all the major international film festivals and led
to the 'Parallel Cinema' movement being firmly established in Indian cinema. Its influence on world
cinema can also be felt in the "youthful coming-of-age dramas that have flooded art houses since the mid-
fifties" which "owe a tremendous debt to the Apu trilogy".[34] Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak went on to
direct many more critically-acclaimed 'art films', and they were followed by other acclaimed Indian
independent filmmakers such as Mrinal Sen, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Mani Kaul and Buddhadeb
Dasgupta.[23] During the 1960s, Indira Gandhi's intervention during her reign as the Information and
Broadcasting Minister of India further led to production of off-beat cinematic expression being supported
by the official Film Finance Corporation.[17]
The cinematographer Subrata Mitra, who made his debut with Satyajit Ray's The Apu Trilogy, also had an
importance influence on cinematography across the world. One of his most important techniques was
bounce lighting, to recreate the effect of daylight on sets. He pioneered the technique while filming
Aparajito (1956), the second part of The Apu Trilogy.[35] Some of the experimental techniques which
Satyajit Ray pioneered include photo-negative flashbacks and X-ray digressions while filming
Pratidwandi (1972).[36] Ray's 1967 script for a film to be called The Alien, which was eventually
cancelled, is also widely believed to have been the inspiration for Steven Spielberg's E.T. (1982).[37][38][39]
Some of Ritwik Ghatak's films also have strong similarities to later famous international films, such as
Bari Theke Paliye (1958) resembling François Truffaut's The 400 Blows (1959) and Ajantrik (1958)
having elements that resemble Taxi Driver (1976) and the Herbie films (1967–2005).
Other regional industries also had their 'Golden Age' during this period. Commercial Tamil cinema
experienced a growth in the number of commercially successful films produced. Some of the most
famous Tamil film personalities at the time included M. G. Ramachandran, Sivaji Ganesan, M. N.
Nambiyar, Asokan and Nagesh.[40] Marathi cinema also ushered in a 'Golden Age' at this time, with some
of its directors such as V. Shantaram later playing in instrumental role in mainstream Hindi cinema's
'Golden Age'.[41]
Ever since Chetan Anand's social realist film Neecha Nagar won the Grand Prize at the first Cannes Film
Festival,[28] Indian films were frequently in competition for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for
nearly every year in the 1950s and early 1960s, with a number of them winning major prizes at the
festival. Satyajit Ray also won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival for Aparajito (1956), the
second part of The Apu Trilogy, and the Golden Bear and two Silver Bears for Best Director at the Berlin
International Film Festival.[42] Ray's contemporaries, Ritwik Ghatak and Guru Dutt, were overlooked in
their own lifetimes but had belatedly generated international recognition much later in the 1980s and
1990s.[42][43] Ray is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema,[44] while Dutt[45] and
Ghatak[46] are also among the greatest filmmakers of all time. In 1992, the Sight & Sound Critics' Poll
ranked Ray at #7 in its list of "Top 10 Directors" of all time,[47] while Dutt was ranked #73 in the 2002
Sight & Sound greatest directors poll.[45]
A number of Indian films from this era are often included among the greatest films of all time in various
critics' and directors' polls. A number of Satyajit Ray films appeared in the Sight & Sound Critics' Poll,
including The Apu Trilogy (ranked #4 in 1992 if votes are combined),[48] The Music Room (ranked #27 in
1992), Charulata (ranked #41 in 1992)[49] and Days and Nights in the Forest (ranked #81 in 1982).[50] The
2002 Sight & Sound critics' and directors' poll also included the Guru Dutt films Pyaasa and Kaagaz Ke
Phool (both tied at #160), the Ritwik Ghatak films Meghe Dhaka Tara (ranked #231) and Komal
Gandhar (ranked #346), and Raj Kapoor's Awaara, Vijay Bhatt's Baiju Bawra, Mehboob Khan's Mother
India and K. Asif's Mughal-e-Azam all tied at #346.[51] In 1998, the critics' poll conducted by the Asian
film magazine Cinemaya included The Apu Trilogy (ranked #1 if votes are combined), Ray's Charulata
and The Music Room (both tied at #11), and Ghatak's Subarnarekha (also tied at #11).[46] In 1999, The
Village Voice top 250 "Best Film of the Century" critics' poll also included The Apu Trilogy (ranked #5 if
votes are combined).[52] In 2005, The Apu Trilogy and Pyaasa were also featured in Time magazine's
"All-TIME" 100 best movies list.[53]
[edit] Modern Indian cinema

Shaji N. Karun's Vanaprastham (1999).

Some filmmakers such as Shyam Benegal continued to produce realistic Parallel Cinema throughout the
1970s,[54] alongside Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal Sen, Buddhadeb Dasgupta and Gautam Ghose in
Bengali cinema; Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Shaji N. Karun, John Abraham and G. Aravindan in Malayalam
cinema; Nirad Mohapatra in Oriya cinema; and Mani Kaul, Kumar Shahani, Ketan Mehta, Govind
Nihalani and Vijaya Mehta in Hindi cinema.[23] However, the 'art film' bent of the Film Finance
Corporation came under criticism during a Committee on Public Undertakings investigation in 1976,
which accused the body of not doing enough to encourage commercial cinema.[55] The 1970s did,
nevertheless, see the rise of commercial cinema in form of enduring films such as Sholay (1975), which
solidified Amitabh Bachchan's position as a lead actor.[55] The devotional classic Jai Santoshi Ma was
also released in 1975.[55] Another important film from 1975 was Deewar, directed by Yash Chopra and
written by Salim-Javed. A crime film pitting "a policeman against his brother, a gang leader based on
real-life smuggler Haji Mastan", portrayed by Amitabh Bachchan, it was described as being “absolutely
key to Indian cinema” by Danny Boyle.[56]
Commercial cinema further grew throughout the 1980s and the 1990s with the release of films such as Ek
dhuje ke liye (1981) Mr India (1987), Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (1988), Tezaab (1988), Chandni (1989),
Maine Pyar Kiya (1989), Baazigar (1993), Darr (1993),[55] Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (1995) and
Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998), many of which starred Shahrukh Khan, Aamir Khan and Salman Khan.

Kamal Hassan as Velu Nayakar in Mani Ratnam's Nayagan was included in Time
magazine's "All-TIME" 100 best movies
The 1990s also saw a surge in the national popularity of Tamil cinema as films directed by Mani Ratnam
captured India's imagination.[55] Such films included Roja (1992) and Bombay (1995). Ratnam's earlier
film Nayagan (1987), starring Kamal Haasan, was included in Time magazine's "All-TIME" 100 best
movies, alongside four earlier Indian films: Satyajit Ray's The Apu Trilogy (1955–1959) and Guru Dutt's
Pyaasa (1957).[53] Another Tamil director S. Shankar also made waves through his film Kadhalan,
famous for its music and actor Prabhu Deva's dancing. The South Indian film industry not only released
cinema with national appeal but also featured multicultural music which found appreciation among the
national Indian audience.[57] Some Tamil filmi composers such as A. R. Rahman and Ilaiyaraaja have
since acquired a large national, and later international, following. Rahman's debut soundtrack for Roja
was included in Time Magazine's "10 Best Soundtracks" of all time,[58] and he would later go on to win
two Academy Awards for his international Slumdog Millionaire (2008) soundtrack. Dasavathaaram
(2008), in which Kamal Haasan portrayed 10 historical roles, went on to achieve significant success.
Tabarana Kathe, a Kannada film, was screened at various film festivals including Tashkent, Nantes,
Tokyo, and the Film Festival of Russia.[59]
Long after the Golden Age of Indian cinema, South India's Malayalam cinema of Kerala experienced its
own 'Golden Age' in the 1980s and early 1990s. Some of the most acclaimed Indian filmmakers at the
time were from the Malayalam industry, including Adoor Gopalakrishnan, G. Aravindan, T. V. Chandran
and Shaji N. Karun.[60] Adoor Gopalakrishnan, who is often considered to be Satyajit Ray's spiritual heir,
[61]
directed some of his most acclaimed films during this period, including Elippathayam (1981) which
won the Sutherland Trophy at the London Film Festival, as well as Mathilukal (1989) which won major
prizes at the Venice Film Festival.[62] Shaji N. Karun's debut film Piravi (1989) won the Camera d'Or at
the 1989 Cannes Film Festival, while his second film Swaham (1994) was in competition for the Palme
d'Or at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival.[63]
Three Idiots, is the highest grossing Indian movie of all time

Bhuvan (Aamir Khan) with his cricket team consisting of village folk, in Ashutosh
Gowarikar's Lagaan (2001).
In the late 1990s, 'Parallel Cinema' began experiencing a resurgence in Hindi cinema, largely due to the
critical and commercial success of Satya (1998), a low-budget film based on the Mumbai underworld,
directed by Ram Gopal Varma and written by Anurag Kashyap. The film's success led to the emergence
of a distinct genre known as Mumbai noir,[64] urban films reflecting social problems in the city of
Mumbai.[65] Later films belonging to the Mumbai noir genre include Madhur Bhandarkar's Chandni Bar
(2001) and Traffic Signal (2007), Ram Gopal Varma's Company (2002) and its prequel D (2005), Anurag
Kashyap's Black Friday (2004), and Irfan Kamal's Thanks Maa (2009). Other art film directors active
today include Mrinal Sen, Buddhadeb Dasgupta, Gautam Ghose, Sandip Ray, Aparna Sen and Rituparno
Ghosh in Bengali cinema; Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Shaji N. Karun and T. V. Chandran in Malayalam
cinema; Nirad Mohapatra in Oriya cinema; Mani Kaul, Kumar Shahani, Ketan Mehta, Govind Nihalani,
Shyam Benegal,[23] Mira Nair, Nagesh Kukunoor, Sudhir Mishra and Nandita Das in Hindi cinema; Mani
Ratnam and Santosh Sivan in Tamil cinema; and Deepa Mehta, Anant Balani, Homi Adajania, Vijay
Singh and Sooni Taraporevala in Indian English cinema.

[edit] Influences

Prasads IMAX Theatre houses at Hyderabad, the 2nd largest IMAX-3D in the world (2nd to
the world's largest in Sydney, Australia).[66]

PVR Cinemas in Bangalore is one of the largest cinema chains in India

MG Road Gurgaon, one of the longest commercial streets in Asia
There have generally been six major influences that have shaped the conventions of Indian popular
cinema. The first was the ancient Indian epics of Mahabharata and Ramayana which have exerted a
profound influence on the thought and imagination of Indian popular cinema, particularly in its
narratives. Examples of this influence include the techniques of a side story, back-story and story within a
story. Indian popular films often have plots which branch off into sub-plots; such narrative dispersals can
clearly be seen in the 1993 films Khalnayak and Gardish. The second influence was the impact of ancient
Sanskrit drama, with its highly stylized nature and emphasis on spectacle, where music, dance and
gesture combined "to create a vibrant artistic unit with dance and mime being central to the dramatic
experience." Sanskrit dramas were known as natya, derived from the root word nrit (dance),
characterizing them as spectacular dance-dramas which has continued in Indian cinema.[67] The Rasa
method of performance, dating back to ancient Sanskrit drama, is one of the fundamental features that
differentiate Indian cinema from that of the Western world. In the Rasa method, empathetic "emotions
are conveyed by the performer and thus felt by the audience," in contrast to the Western Stanislavski
method where the actor must become "a living, breathing embodiment of a character" rather than "simply
conveying emotion." The rasa method of performance is clearly apparent in the performances of popular
Hindi film actors like Amitabh Bachchan and Shahrukh Khan, nationally-acclaimed Hindi films like
Rang De Basanti (2006),[68] and internationally-acclaimed Bengali films directed by Satyajit Ray.[69]
The third influence was the traditional folk theatre of India, which became popular from around the 10th
century with the decline of Sanskrit theatre. These regional traditions include the Yatra of Bengal, the
Ramlila of Uttar Pradesh, and the Terukkuttu of Tamil Nadu. The fourth influence was Parsi theatre,
which "blended realism and fantasy, music and dance, narrative and spectacle, earthy dialogue and
ingenuity of stage presentation, integrating them into a dramatic discourse of melodrama. The Parsi plays
contained crude humour, melodious songs and music, sensationalism and dazzling stagecraft."[67] All of
these influences are clearly evident in the masala film genre that was popularized by Manmohan Desai's
films in the 1970s and early 1980s, particularly in Coolie (1983), and to an extent in more recent
critically-acclaimed films such as Rang De Basanti.[68]
The fifth influence was Hollywood, where musicals were popular from the 1920s to the 1950s, though
Indian filmmakers departed from their Hollywood counterparts in several ways. "For example, the
Hollywood musicals had as their plot the world of entertainment itself. Indian filmmakers, while
enhancing the elements of fantasy so pervasive in Indian popular films, used song and music as a natural
mode of articulation in a given situation in their films. There is a strong Indian tradition of narrating
mythology, history, fairy stories and so on through song and dance." In addition, "whereas Hollywood
filmmakers strove to conceal the constructed nature of their work so that the realistic narrative was
wholly dominant, Indian filmmakers made no attempt to conceal the fact that what was shown on the
screen was a creation, an illusion, a fiction. However, they demonstrated how this creation intersected
with people's day to day lives in complex and interesting ways."[70] The final influence was Western
musical television, particularly MTV, which has had an increasing influence since the 1990s, as can be
seen in the pace, camera angles, dance sequences and music of recent Indian films. An early example of
this approach was in Mani Ratnam's Bombay (1995).[71]
Like mainstream Indian popular cinema, Indian Parallel Cinema was also influenced also by a
combination of Indian theatre (particularly Sanskrit drama) and Indian literature (particularly Bengali
literature), but differs when it comes to foreign influences, where it is more influenced by European
cinema (particularly Italian neorealism and French poetic realism) rather than Hollywood. Satyajit Ray
cited Italian filmmaker Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves (1948) and French filmmaker Jean Renoir's
The River (1951), which he assisted, as influences on his debut film Pather Panchali (1955). Besides the
influence of European cinema and Bengali literature, Ray is also indebted to the Indian theatrical
tradition, particularly the Rasa method of classical Sanskrit drama. The complicated doctrine of Rasa
"centers predominantly on feeling experienced not only by the characters but also conveyed in a certain
artistic way to the spectator. The duality of this kind of a rasa imbrication" shows in The Apu Trilogy.[69]
Bimal Roy's Two Acres of Land (1953) was also influenced by De Sica's Bicycle Thieves and in turn
paved the way for the Indian New Wave, which began around the same time as the French New Wave
and the Japanese New Wave.[32]

[edit] Bengali cinema

Satyajit Ray, Bengali filmmaker.

Main articles: Bengali cinema and Cinema of West Bengal

The Bengali language cinematic tradition of Tollygunge in West Bengal has had reputable filmmakers
such as Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak and Mrinal Sen among its most acclaimed.[72] Recent Bengali films
that have captured national attention include Rituparno Ghosh's Choker Bali, starring Aishwarya Rai.[73]
Bengali filmmaking also includes Bangla science fiction films and films that focus on social issues.[74] In
1993, the Bengali industry's net output was 57 films.[75]
The history of cinema in Bengal dates back to the 1890s, when the first "bioscopes" were shown in
theatres in Calcutta. Within a decade, the first seeds of the industry was sown by Hiralal Sen, considered
a stalwart of Victorian era cinema when he set up the Royal Bioscope Company, producing scenes from
the stage productions of a number of popular shows at the Star Theatre, Calcutta, Minerva Theatre,
Classic Theatre. Following a long gap after Sen's works, Dhirendra Nath Ganguly (Known as D.G)
established Indo British Film Co, the first Bengali owned production company, in 1918. However, the
first Bengali Feature film, Billwamangal, was produced in 1919, under the banner of Madan Theatre.
Bilat Ferat was the IBFC's first production in 1921. The Madan Theatres production of Jamai Shashthi
was the first Bengali talkie.[76]
In 1932, the name "Tollywood" was coined for the Bengali film industry due to Tollygunge rhyming with
"Hollywood" and because it was the center of the Indian film industry at the time. It later inspired the
name "Bollywood", as Mumbai (then called Bombay) later overtook Tollygunge as the center of the
Indian film industry, and many other Hollywood-inspired names.[77] The 'Parallel Cinema' movement
began in the Bengali film industry in the 1950s. A long history has been traversed since then, with
stalwarts such as Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, Ritwik Ghatak and others having earned international acclaim
and securing their place in the history of film.
[edit] Marathi cinema
Main article: Marathi cinema

Marathi cinema (मराठी िचतपट) refers to films produced in the Marathi language in the state of
Maharashtra, India. Marathi Cinema is as old as Indian Cinema. In fact the pioneer of cinema in Union of
India was Dadasaheb Phalke, who brought the revolution of moving images to India with his first
indigenously made silent film Raja Harishchandra in 1913, which is considered by IFFI and NIFD part
of Marathi cinema as it was made by a Marathi crew. The first Marathi talkie film, Ayodhyecha Raja[1]
(produced by Prabhat Films) was released in 1932, just one year after "Alam Ara" the first Hindi talkie
film. Marathi cinema has grown in recent years, with two of its films, namely "Shwaas" (2004) and
"Harishchandrachi Factory" (2009), being sent as India's official entries for the Oscars. Today the
industry is based in Mumbai, Maharashtra, but it sprouted and grew first from Kolhapur and then Pune.
[edit] Assamese cinema
Main article: Cinema of Assam

The Assamese language film industry traces its origins works s of revolutionary visionary Rupkonwar
Jyotiprasad Agarwala, who was also a distinguished poet, playwright, composer and freedom fighter. He
was instrumental in the production of the first Assamese film Joymati[78] in 1935, under the banner of
Critrakala Movietone. Although the beginning of the 21st century has seen Bollywood-style Assamese
movies hitting the screen, the industry has not been able to compete in the market, significantly
overshadowed by the larger industries such as Bollywood [79].
[edit] Bhojpuri cinema
Main article: Bhojpuri cinema

Bhojpuri language films predominantly cater to people who live in the regions of Bihar and eastern Uttar
Pradesh. These films also have a large audience in the cities of Delhi and Mumbai due to migration to
these metros from the Bhojpuri speaking region. Besides India, there is a large market for these films in
other bhojpuri speaking countries of the West Indies, Oceania, and South America[80]. Bhojpuri language
film's history begins in 1962 with the well-received film Ganga Maiyya Tohe Piyari Chadhaibo ("Mother
Ganges, I will offer you a yellow sari"), which was directed by Kundan Kumar.[81] Throughout the
following decades, films were produced only in fits and starts. Films such as Bidesiya ("Foreigner," 1963,
directed by S. N. Tripathi) and Ganga ("Ganges," 1965, directed by Kundan Kumar) were profitable and
popular, but in general Bhojpuri films were not commonly produced in the 1960s and 1970s.
The industry experienced a revival in 2001 with the super hit Saiyyan Hamar ("My Sweetheart," directed
by Mohan Prasad), which shot the hero of that film, Ravi Kissan, to superstardom.[82] This success was
quickly followed by several other remarkably successful films, including Panditji Batai Na Biyah Kab
Hoi ("Priest, tell me when I will marry," 2005, directed by Mohan Prasad) and Sasura Bada Paisa Wala
("My father-in-law, the rich guy," 2005). In a measure of the Bhojpuri film industry's rise, both of these
did much better business in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar than mainstream Bollywood hits at the
time, and both films, made on extremely tight budgets, earned back more than ten times their production
costs[83]. Although a smaller industry compared to other Indian film industries, the extremely rapid
success of their films has led to dramatic increases in Bhojpuri cinema's visibility, and the industry now
supports an awards show[84] and a trade magazine, Bhojpuri City[85].
Bhojpuri film have got a distuingsed name in whole world. The chief minister of Bihar Mr. Nitish Kumar
is going to start a film Industry in Rajgir ( distance from Patna is 80 km). That film industry will provide
job for a lot of people belongs to Bihar and East UP. There are many films in which the bollywood actors
such as Amitabh Bachchan, Ajay Deogan, Nagama, Mithun Chakravarti etc. worked it and supported to
Bhojpuri film industry.........
[edit] Hindi cinema

Nargis and Raj Kapoor in Awaara (1951), also directed and produced by Kapoor.
Main article: Bollywood

The Hindi language film industry of Mumbai—also known as the Bombay Film Industry—is the largest
and most popular branch of Indian cinema.[86] Hindi cinema initially explored issues of caste and culture
in films such as Achhut Kanya (1936) and Sujata (1959).[87] International visibility came to the industry
with Raj Kapoor's Awara.[88] Hindi cinema grew during the 1990s with the release of as many as 215
films in 1991.[9] With Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, Hindi cinema registered its commercial presence in
the Western world.[9]
In 1995 the Indian economy began showing sustainable annual growth, and Hindi cinema, as a
commercial enterprise, grew at a growth rate of 15% annually.[9] With growth in commercial appeal the
earnings of known Indian stars such as Shahrukh Khan, Aamir Khan and Hrithik Roshan reached 150
million (US$3.3 million) per film by the year 2010.[10] Female stars such as Madhuri Dixit, too, earned as
much as 12.5 million (US$276,250) for a film.[9] Many actors signed contracts for simultaneous work in
3–4 films.[10] Institutions such as the Industrial Development Bank of India also came forward to finance
Hindi films.[10] A number of magazines such as Filmfare, Stardust, Cineblitz, etc., became popular.[89]
[edit] Gujarati cinema
Main article: Gujarati cinema

This regional film industry of Gujarat started its journey in 1932. Since then Gujarati films immensely
contributed to Indian cinema. Gujarati cinema has gained popularity among the regional film industry in
India. Gujarati cinema is always based on scripts from mythology to history and social to political. Since
its origin Gujarati cinema has experimented with stories and issues from the Indian society. Furthermore,
Gujarat has immense contribution to Bollywood as several Gujarati actors have brought glamour to the
Indian film industry.
[[File:Mallika Sarabhai in play AKABR directed by Arvind Gaur.jpg|thumb|Mallika Sarabhai]]
Many famous actors have worked in Gujarati film industry like Sanjeev Kumar, Rajendra Kumar, Bindu,
Asha Parekh, Kiran Kumar, Arvind Trivedi, Aruna Irani, Mallika Sarabhai, and Asrani.
The scripts and stories dealt in the Gujarati films are intrinsically humane. They include relationship- and
family-oriented subjects with human aspirations and deal with Indian family culture. Thus, there can be
no turning away from the essential humanity of these Gujarati cinema. The first Gujarati movie,
Narasinh Mehta, was released in the year 1932 and was directed by Nanubhai Vakil. The film starred
Mohanlala, Marutirao, Master Manhar, and Miss Mehtab. It was of the `Saint film` genre and was based
on the life of the saint Narasinh Mehta who observed a creed that was followed centuries later by
Mahatma Gandhi. The film was matchless as it avoided any depiction of miracles. In 1935, another social
movie, Ghar Jamai was released, directed by Homi Master. The film starred Heera, Jamna, Baby
Nurjehan, Amoo, Alimiya, Jamshedji, and Gulam Rasool. The film featured a `resident son-in-law` (ghar
jamai) and his escapades as well as his problematic attitude toward the freedom of women. It was a
comedy-oriented movie that was a major success in the industry.
Gujarati films thus proceeded with several other important social, political as well as religious issues. The
years 1948, 1950, 1968, 1971 moved in a wide variety of dimensions. The Gujarati movies such as
Kariyavar, directed by Chaturbhuj Doshi, Vadilona Vank directed by Ramchandra Thakur, Gadano Bel
directed by Ratibhai Punatar and Leeludi Dharti directed by Vallabh Choksi brought immense success to
the industry. The problems of modernisation are the underlying concern of several films. The movies like
Gadano Bel had strong realism and reformism.
The film industry in Gujarat experimented with issues. Gujarati films such as Leeludi Dharti reflect the
rural world with its fertility rituals. In 1975 Tanariri, directed by Chandrakant Sangani presents
highlights the little-known side of Akbar who is usually presented as a consistently benign ruler. The first
cinemascope film of Gujarati cinema was Sonbaini Chundadi, directed by Girish Manukant released in
1976. Besides these, Bhavni Bhavai released in 1980 was directed by Ketan Mehta. It boasted superlative
performances, fine camerawork and won two awards: National Award for Best Feature Film on National
Integration and an award at the Nantes Three Continents Festival in France. In 1992, Hun Hunshi
Hunshilal, directed by Sanjiv Shah was sought to be post-modern.
Gujarati films were further enriched by the brilliant performances of the film personalities. Anupama,
Upendra Trivedi, Arvind Trivedi, Ramesh Mehta and Veljibhai Gajjar, Dilip Patel, Ranjitraj, Sohil
Virani, Narayan Rajgor, Premshankar Bhatt, Jay Patel, Ashvin Patel, Girija Mitra, Anjana, Manmohan
Desai, Sanjay Gadhvi, Kalyanji Anandji, Deepika Chikhalia, Bindu Desai, Renuka Sahane and Priti
Parekh are celebrities who have contributed a lot to the Gujarati film industry.
[edit] Kannada cinema
Main article: Kannada cinema

A painting of Rajkumar in a streetboard in Bangalore

Kannada film industry, also known as Sandalwood, is based in Bangalore and caters mostly to the
population of state of Karnataka.
Dr. Rajkumar is an icon for Kannada film industry. In his career, he performed versatile characters and
sung nearly 3,000 songs for movies and albums.[citation needed] Some noted Kannada directors include Girish
Kasaravalli, Puttanna Kanagal, G.V.Iyer, Girish Karnad, T.S. Nagabharana, Yograj Bhat, Suri. The
popular actors include Vishnuvardhan, Ambarish, Ravichandran, Ramesh, Ananth Nag, Shankar Nag,
Prabhakar, ganesh, Upendra, Sudeep, Darshan, Shivaraj Kumar, Puneet Rajkumar, Kalpana, Bharathi,
Jayanthi, Pandari bai, B Sarojadevi, Sudharani, Malashri, Tara, Umashri and Ramya.

Kamalhassan and Amala in the poster of Pushpak, a black comedy film directed by
Singeetham Srinivasa Rao
G.K. Venkatesh, Vijaya Bhaskar, TG lingappa, Rajan-Nagendra, Hamsalekha and Gurukiran are noted
music directors.
Kannada cinema, along with Bengali and Malayalam movies, has contributed to Indian parallel cinema.
Some of the influential movies in this genre are Samskara (based on a novel by U. R. Ananthamurthy),
Chomana Dudi by B. V. Karanth, Tabarana Kathe, Vamshavruksha, Paniyamma, Kadu Kudure,
Hamsageethe, Chomana Dudi, Accident, Ghatashraddha, Akramana, Mooru Dhaarigalu, Tabarana
Kathe, Bannada Vesha, Mane, Kraurya, Thaayi Saheba, Dweepa are other acclaimed "arthouse" movies.
[edit] Malayalam cinema
Main article: Malayalam cinema

Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Malayalam filmmaker.

The Malayalam film industry, based in the southern state of Kerala, is known for films that bridge the gap
between parallel cinema and mainstream cinema by portraying thought-provoking social issues. Noted
filmmakers include Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Shaji N. Karun, G. Aravindan, Padmarajan, Sathyan
Anthikad, Priyadarsan and Bharathan.
Vigathakumaran, a silent movie released in 1928 produced and directed by J. C. Daniel, marked the
beginning of Malayalam cinema. Balan, released in 1938, was the first Malayalam "talkie". Malayalam
films were mainly produced by Tamil producers till 1947, when the first major film studio, Udaya, was
established in Kerala. In 1954, the film Neelakkuyil captured national interest by winning the President's
silver medal. Scripted by the well-known Malayalam novelist, Uroob, and directed by P. Bhaskaran and
Ramu Kariat, it is often considered as the first authentic Malayali film[90]. Chemmeen (1965), directed by
Ramu Kariat and based on a story by Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai, went on to become immensely
popular, and became the first Malayalam film to win the National Film Award for Best Film[91][92]. This
early period of Malayalam cinema was dominated by actors Prem Nazir, Sathyan, Sheela and Sharada.
The 70s saw the emergence of 'New Wave Malayalam Cinema'. Adoor Gopalakrishnan captured
international acclaim through his debut film Swayamvaram (1972). Other noted movies of the period
include Nirmalyam by M. T. Vasudevan Nair, Uttarayanam by G. Aravindan, Cheriyachante
Kroorakrithyangal (1979) and Amma Ariyan (1986) by John Abraham etc.
The period from late 1980s to early 1990s is popularly regarded as the 'Golden Age of Malayalam
Cinema' with the emergence of actors Mammootty and Mohanlal and filmmakers like I.V. Sasi,
Bharathan, Padmarajan, Sathyan Anthikad, Priyadarsan, A. K. Lohithadas, Siddique-Lal and Sreenivasan.
This period of popular cinema is characterized by the adaptation of everyday life themes and exploration
of social and individual relationships.[93] These movies interlaced themes of individual struggle with
creative humour as in Nadodikkattu (1988). Piravi (1989) by Shaji N. Karun was the first Malayalam
film to win the Caméra d'Or-Mention at the Cannes Film Festival. This period also marked the beginning
of movies rich in well-crafted humour like Ramji Rao Speaking (1989). Malayalam is the original version
of first 3D movie in India (My Dear Kuttichattan 3D) by Navodaya Appachan, a notable film producer of
Kerala.
During late 1990s and 2000s, Malayalam cinema witnessed a shift towards formulaic movies and
slapstick comedies. The Malayalam film industry in recent times has also been affected by the rise of
satellite television and widespread film piracy.
[edit] Oriya cinema
Main article: Oriya cinema

The Oriya Film Industry refers to the Bhubaneswar and Cuttack based Oriya language film industry.
Sometimes called Ollywood a portmanteau of the words Oriya and Hollywood, although the origins of
the name are disputed.[94] The first Oriya talkie Sita Bibaha was made by Mohan Sunder Deb Goswami in
1936. Prashanta Nanda started the revolution in the Oriya film industry by not only securing a huge
audience but also bringing in a newness in the his presentation. His movies heralded in the golden era of
the Oriya commercial industry by bringing in freshness to Oriya movies.[95] Then the 1st color film was
made by Nagen Ray and photographed by a Pune Film Institute trained cinematographer Mr. Surendra
Sahu titled " Gapa Hele Be Sata"- meaning although its a story, its true. But the golden phase of Oriya
Cinema was 1984 when two Oriya films 'Maya Miriga' and 'Dhare Alua' was showcased in 'Indian
Panorama' and Nirad Mohapatra's 'Maya Miriga' was invited for the 'Critics Week' in Cannes. The film
received 'Best Third World Film'award at Mannheim Film Festival, Jury Award at Hawaii and was shown
at London Film Festival.
[edit] Punjabi cinema
Main article: Punjabi cinema

K.D. Mehra made the first Punjabi film Sheila (also known as Pind di Kudi). Baby Noor Jehan was
introduced as an actress and singer in this film. Sheila was made in Calcutta and released in Lahore, the
capital of Punjab; it ran very successfully and was a hit across the province. Due to the success of this
first film many more producers started making Punjabi films. As of 2009, Punjabi cinema has produced
between 900 and 1,000 movies. The average number of releases per year in the 1970s was nine; in the
1980s, eight; and in the 1990s, six. In 1995, the number of films released was 11; it plummeted to seven
in 1996 and touched a low of five in 1997. Since 2000s the Punjabi cinema has seen a revival with more
releases every year featuring bigger budgets, home grown stars as well as bollywood actors of Punjabi
descent taking part.
[edit] Tamil cinema
Main article: Tamil cinema

The Tamil language film industry, known as Tamil cinema, is the third largest film industry in India in
terms of number of movies it produces. It is based in the Kodambakkam district of Chennai, Tamil Nadu.
Tamil Nadu cinema has had a profound effect on the filmmaking industries of India, with Chennai
becoming a hub for the filmmaking industries of other languages, including Telugu cinema, Malayalam
cinema, Kannada cinema, Hindi cinema, Sinhalese cinema and Sri Lankan Tamil cinema in the 1900s.
Tamil-language films are further made in other countries. Today, Tamil films are distributed to theatres
around the world: Sri Lanka, Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia, Mauritius, South Africa, Western
Europe, North America, and other significant Tamil diaspora regions.[96] Tamil films are screened by the
Tamil diaspora all over the world and people of all states of South India. Tamil films have good portrayal
of Tamil culture which has subdued sexual expressions and moderate glamour, unlike its northern
counterpart.[97] Tamil cinema has been a force in the local politics of the Tamil Nadu state with some of
the industry's personalities, such as M. G. Ramachandran, M. Karunanidhi, and J. Jayalalitha, having held
political offices.[98] The renowned actor Chevalier Sivaji Ganesan found fame for his versatility and
expressive prowess in Tamil cinema.
With the establishment of the Madras Film Institute the quality of Tamil cinema improved during the
1980s and it further gained international exposure with the works of filmmakers like Mani Ratnam. In
1993 the Tamil industry's net output was 168 films.[75] Tamil star Kamal Hassan shares the record for the
most National Film Awards won with Mammootty and Hindi actor Amitabh Bachchan and also shares
the record for the actor with the most films submitted by India in contest for the Academy Award for Best
Foreign Language Film with Bachchan while Rajinikanth is the highest paid actor in India.[96]
Great music directors like Maestro Ilaiyaraja, who is the first Asian composer to score a symphony for
the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the two Academy Award winner A.R. Rahman are from Tamil Film
Industries. Legendary directors like Kailasam Balachander, Mani Ratnam, Bharathiraja, Balumahendra,
Bala and India's expensive filmmaker S. Shankar are from the Tamil cinema industry.
[edit] Telugu cinema
Main article: Cinema of Andhra Pradesh

The Telugu language film industry of Andhra Pradesh is currently the second largest in India in terms of
number of movies produced in a year.[99] The state of Andhra Pradesh has the highest number of cinema
halls in India. In 2006, the Telugu film industry produced the largest number of films in India, with about
245 films produced that year.[100] The largest film studio complex in the world – Ramoji Film City is in
the outskirts of Hyderabad, the capital city of Andhra Pradesh.
The film industry of India comprises several smaller regional industries, each catering largely to a
specific language audience.[75] However, a significant degree of regional interaction is seen between the
various regions as filmmakers and actors from one region often contribute to films meant for another
region.[75] B.N. Reddy, KV Reddy, LV Prasad, Ramakrishna (Bharani), C. Pullayya, P. Pullayya, CS Rao,
Adurti Subba Rao, V.Madhusudan Rao, K Vishwanath, Bapu, Jandhyala, Singitham Srinivasarao, Dasari
Narayana Rao, K.Raghavendra Rao, B.Gopal, Ramgopal Varma, are some of the best directors of Telugu
cinema history. Legendary actors SV Ranga rao,NTR, ANR, Bhanumati, Savitri are from Telugu
Industry. Chiranjeevi a recent politician in Andhra Pradesh started his career as an actor in the Telugu
film industry.

[edit] Genres and styles

[edit] Masala films
Main article: Masala (film genre)

Masala is a style of Indian cinema, especially in Bollywood and South Indian films, in which there is a
mix of various genres in one film. For example, a film can portray action, comedy, drama, romance and
melodrama all together. Many of these films also tend to be musicals, including songs filmed in
picturesque locations, which is now very common in Bollywood films. Plots for such movies may seem
illogical and improbable to unfamiliar viewers. The genre is named after the masala, a term used to
describe a mixture of spices in Indian cuisine.
[edit] Parallel cinema
Main article: Parallel Cinema

Parallel Cinema, also known as Art Cinema or the Indian New Wave, is a specific movement in Indian
cinema, known for its serious content, realism and naturalism, with a keen eye on the social-political
climate of the times. This movement is distinct from mainstream Bollywood cinema and began around
the same time as the French New Wave and Japanese New Wave. The movement was initially led by
Bengali cinema (which has produced internationally acclaimed filmmakers such as Satyajit Ray, Mrinal
Sen, Ritwik Ghatak, and others) and then gained prominence in the other film industries of India. Some
of the films in this movement have garnered commercial success, successfully stradling art and
commercial cinema. An early example of this was Bimal Roy's Two Acres of Land (1953), which was
both a commercial success and a critical success, winning the International Prize at the 1954 Cannes Film
Festival. The film's success paved the way for the Indian New Wave.[31][32][101]
The most famous Indian "neo-realist" was the Bengali filmmaker Satyajit Ray, closely followed by
Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal Sen, Shyam Benegal, Adoor Gopalakrishnan[23] and Girish Kasaravalli.[97] Ray's
most famous films were The Apu Trilogy, consisting of Pather Panchali (1955), Aparajito (1956) and
The World of Apu (1959). The three films won major prizes at the Cannes, Berlin and Venice Film
Festivals, and are frequently listed among the greatest films of all time.[52][53][102][103]

[edit] Film music

Indian film dances usually follow filmi songs.
See also: Filmi

Music in Indian cinema is a substantial revenue generator, with the music rights alone accounting for 4–
5% of the net revenues generated by a film in India.[10] The major film music companies of India are
Saregama, Sony Music etc.[10] Commercially, film music accounts for 48% India's net music sales.[10] A
film in India may have many choreographed songs spread throughout its length.[104]
The demands of a multicultural, increasingly globalized Indian audience often led to a mixing of various
local and international musical traditions.[104] Local dance and music nevertheless remain a time tested
and recurring theme in India and have made their way outside of India's borders with its diaspora.[104]
Playback singers such as Lata Mangeshkar drew large crowds with national and international film music
stage shows.[104] The end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 21st saw extensive interaction
between artists from India and the western world.[105] Artists from Indian diaspora blended the traditions
of their heritage to those of their country to give rise rise to popular contemporary music.[105]

[edit] Global discourse

Indians during the colonial rule bought film equipment from Europe.[14] The British funded wartime
propaganda films during the second world war, some of which showed the Indian army pitted against the
axis powers, specifically the Empire of Japan, which had managed to infiltrate into India.[106] One such
story was Burma Rani, which depicted civilian resistance offered to Japanese occupation by the British
and Indians present in Myanmar.[106] Pre-independence businessmen such as J. F. Madan and Abdulally
Esoofally traded in global cinema.[13]
Indian cinema's early contacts with other regions became visible with its films making early inroads into
the Soviet Union, Middle East, Southeast Asia,[107] and China. Mainstream Hindi film stars like Raj
Kapoor gained international fame across Asia[108][109] and Eastern Europe.[110][111] Indian films also
appeared in international fora and film festivals.[107] This allowed 'Parallel' Bengali filmmakers such as
Satyajit Ray to achieve worldwide fame, with his films gaining success among European, American and
Asian audiences.[112] Ray's work subsequently had a worldwide impact, with filmmakers such as Martin
Scorsese,[113] James Ivory,[114] Abbas Kiarostami, Elia Kazan, François Truffaut,[115] Steven Spielberg,[37][38]
[39]
Carlos Saura,[116] Jean-Luc Godard,[117] Isao Takahata,[118] Gregory Nava, Ira Sachs and Wes
Anderson[119] being influenced by his cinematic style, and many others such as Akira Kurosawa praising
his work.[120] The "youthful coming-of-age dramas that have flooded art houses since the mid-fifties owe
a tremendous debt to the Apu trilogy".[34] Subrata Mitra's cinematographic technique of bounce lighting
also originates from The Apu Trilogy.[35] Since the 1980s, some previously overlooked Indian filmmakers
such as Ritwik Ghatak [121] and Guru Dutt [122] have posthumously gained international acclaim.
Many Asian and 'South Asian' countries increasingly came to find Indian cinema as more suited to their
sensibilities than Western cinema.[107] Jigna Desai holds that by the 21st century Indian cinema had
managed to become 'deterritorialized', spreading over to the many parts of the world where Indian
diaspora was present in significant numbers, and becoming an alternative to other international cinema.
[123]

Indian cinema has more recently begun influencing Western musical films, and played a particularly
instrumental role in the revival of the genre in the Western world. Baz Luhrmann stated that his
successful musical film Moulin Rouge! (2001) was directly inspired by Bollywood musicals.[124] The
critical and financial success of Moulin Rouge! renewed interest in the then-moribund Western musical
genre, subsequently fueling a renaissance of the genre.[125] Danny Boyle's Oscar-winning film Slumdog
Millionaire (2008) was also directly inspired by Indian films,[56][126] and is considered to be a "homage to
Hindi commercial cinema".[28] Other Indian filmmakers are also making attempts at reaching a more
global audience, with upcoming films by directors such as Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Jahnu Barua, Sudhir
Mishra and Pan Nalin.[127]

[edit] Awards
Si
Award nc Awarded by
e

Bengal Film Journalists' Association 19 Bengal Film Journalists' Association Awards, Government of
Awards 37 West Bengal

Filmfare Awards 19
Filmfare
Filmfare Awards South 54

19
National Film Awards Directorate of Film Festivals, Government of India
54

19
Dadasaheb Phalke Award Directorate of Film Festivals, Government of India
69

19
Star Screen Awards STAR TV (Asia)
95

19
Kerala State Film Awards Government of Kerala
68

19
Zee Cine Awards Zee Entertainment Enterprises
98

19
Asianet Film Awards Asianet
98

20
IIFA Awards International Indian Film Academy
00

Other awards include the International Tamil Film Awards, Bollywood Movie Awards, the Nandi
Awards, Global Indian Film Awards, Stardust Awards, Apsara Film and Television Producers Guild
Awards.

Indian films command a huge domestic market and are popular abroad, particularly in
Asia, Africa and West Asia. India leads the world in the output of films, with more than 800
Indian films produced annually.
The major production of Indian movie centers are Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata. Apart
from popular entertainment through commercial cinema, art cinema deals with a serious
themes particularly relevant to Indian society. There has been widespread recognition of
Indian artists and directors at film festivals in different parts of the world.

Movies arrived in India less than a year after the Lumieres first exhibited their
cinematographie in Paris. On July 7, 1896, an agent who had brought equipment and films
from France first showed his moving pictures in Bombay. That was an important day in the
social and cultural history of the Indian people.
The first Indian-made feature film (3700 feet long) was released in 1913. It was made by
Dadasaheb Phalke and was called Raja Harishchandra. Based on a story from the
Mahabharata it was a stirring film concerned with honour, sacrifice and mighty deeds.
From then on many "mythologicals" were made and took India by storm. Phalke's
company alone produced about a hundred films.

The First International Film Festival, held in Bombay in 1951, showed Italian works for the
first time in India. The influence of Neorealism can be seen in films such as Do Bigha
Zamin/Two Measures of Land (Bimal Roy, 1953), a portrait of father and son eking out a
living in Calcutta that strongly echoes the narrative of Vittorio de Sica's Bicycle Thief
(1948). Mehboob Khan's Andaz/Style (1949), an upperclass love triangle founded on a
tragic misunderstanding, draws on codes of psychological representation - hallucinations
and dreams that feature strongly in 1940s Hollywood melodrama. Mehboob's tendency to
make a visual spectacle of his material, and his involvement with populist themes and
issues make him a good example of popular cinema of the time.

The late Satyajit Ray was awarded many prestigious international awards including the
Oscar in 1992 for Lifetime Achievement in Cinema. Documentary and short film makers
have also played an important role in spreading knowledge and awareness among sections
which are yet to get the benefits of modern education. Film and Television Institute of
India, Pune, imparts training in film making and televisions programme production.

Hindi Movies made by the students of this Institute have won many national and
international awards in festivals in India and abroad

BOLLYWOOD- A NEW ERA

The Indian film industry is called Bollywood because it is based in Bombay. Everybody who goes to Bombay or
now known as Mumbai wants to see this ever growing industry and its stars.

Movies in India are basically made with a lot of spices. In India a movie has to have song, dance, romance,
thrill, suspense, comedy, action, family drama etc. People in India work for ten hours a day and that too during
the main part of the day and so many of them return to a home with no entertainment. The only available
entertainment is movies. Whether a business tycoon or a cycle rickshaw driver all want to watch movies. So
when a movie is made the makers have to keep in mind both the masses and the classes.

Indian cinema has improved drastically and now the audience is very mature too. They still want song and
dance but not the running around tree sequences. So now there is a new market for item songs. This is where a
nice fast track is made only for a great dancer to dance and increase the sales. Some of the top songs have
been Babuji zara dhere chalo, khallas etc.

Movies were made particularly for the masses and the multiplex crowd. But now the viewers want to see good
movies with great stories. Earlier the hero carried the entire movie on his shoulders but now the load is evenly
spread. A movie will do well even if you don’t have a great star cast but have a great story and your actors do a
job. A good example for this would be Khosla Ka Ghosla. There is nobody you can call the hero of the film but
it’s realistic and humorous.

In three hours the audience wants to laugh, cry and be excited and so it’s a tough task for the directors but
then hats off to all Indian directors as they come up with something spicy enough to fulfill the needs of all types
of viewers.

Each movie has the main story and a lot of other small stories that build around it. At times in stories there may
not be any scope for comedy. A lot of directors use other characters and bring in another funny plot. This
comedy has no link with the movies. In the past people accepted this kind of comedy too but nowadays the
audience accepts comedy only when it’s a part of the main story.

People who want to watch emotions are very particular about the quality of the emotions too. If you can’t cry or
deliver the dialogues properly the audience rejects the star immediately. The stars have to be convincing
enough. This is where the director’s ability is tested. The comedy has to be timed properly and the tears have to
be realistically shed.

Movies in India have been made with a lot of respect for family values and traditions. Every movie which shows
any function has to do it in the right way. If there is a wedding song in a movie it not only becomes a hit. It
becomes a part of every Indian wedding. Movies like Hum Saath Saath Hain and Hum Apke Hain Kaun have
been very very big hits because each and every scene of the movie is actually what happens in joint families
and in weddings.

A movie when made in India has to be made in such a way that both a 5 year kid and an 85 year old grand
father both have to enjoy it. It has to have a great story, touching performances, lovely music, breath taking
locations, great dance steps and of course a really bad villain whom the hero has to bash up even if he is on the
death bed.

This is true bollywood ishtyle where anything can happen. The hero can beat up any number of guys. The
heroine can cry without glycerin. The villain is always ugly to look at. The police will never reach on time to save
people. It’s only up to the hero to do all the running around, saving and bashing up. The heroines will always be
wearing great makeup even if its in the middle of the night. Mother in laws can’t be good and the daughter in
law will only worry about everybody else’s happiness and not hers. This is apna bollywood with all these errors
but still it is the biggest film industry in the world. Nearly thrice the number of movies is made each year than
the number of days in a year. If you are a movie buff then there is no place like bollywood because there is
nothing that you can’t find here.

TAMIL FILM INDUSTRY OR KOLLYWOOD

Like bollywood gets its name from Bombay and Hollywood, the Tamil industry gets its name from
Kodambakkam where the industry is based and Hollywood. This is the second biggest industry in India and is
based at Chennai.

Tamil movie makers unlike their Hindi counterparts are far more original in their scripts. Very often you will find
that a lot of Hindi movies are remakes of hit Tamil movies. Big stars like Amitabh Bachchan, Salman Khan and
Anil Kapoor are known to have acted in Tamil remakes. Some Tamil movies have been such big hits that they
have been dubbed and released in Hindi too and they have been very big hits like Roja, Bombay etc.

The current Big B of the Tamil industry is Rajnikant. This is an actor who has been acting in the Tamil film
industry from the black and white era and is still going very strong. His last movie was Chandramukhi where he
plays a psychologist. Born in 1950, there is nothing that can stop this star. He has acted in Tamil, Telugu, Hindi,
English, Kannada, Bengali and Malayalam. Rajnikant is not only a hit in India, his movies sell like hot cakes both
in Singapore and Japan.

Now the industry is crowded with a lot of young stars. Each male star has a different nick name by which his
fans know hi like-Super star- Rajnikant, Ultimate star- Ajith, Captain- Vijaykant, Ilaya Talapathi Leader of the
youth)- Vijay etc.

The year 2010 has been a very different year for Kollywood as many movies came out this year but only the
movies which were different stood out. This year another big thing was that the industry hits were all given by
Malayalam actresses. Normally Kollywood is ruled by the Hindi actresses. This year Jyothika married Actor Surya
and now there aren’t any more Hindi actresses.

The top two movies were extremely different movies for the Tamil folks. 23am Pulikesi was a period film with
comedian playing the hero. He has done a double role and has proved to the world that his talent alone is
enough to carry the movie through. Irony of life but here looks just didn't matter the story and the performance
just carried the movie through. Vettaiyaadu Valaiyaadu was another different movie. A movie about two serial
killers and a cop who tracks them down. It was like watching Discovery's Medical Detectives with a lot of mirch
masala. People loved the music and debutant Kamalinee Mukherjee has become a star over night.

AWARDS
If a movie has been made then there has to be some reward for the people who excel in this industry and this is
where come in the awards. The first and the oldest award to be given in India was the prestigious black Lady or
the filmfare awards. This award has now been in the industry for the last 52 years. Then in 1954 came in the
National awards which are the most prestigious award to be won. The stars are rated for their movies in the
previous year and awarded by a panel of ten jury members.

Any award is surrounded by many entries in each category. The National award is not only for Hindi movies but
is for the regional movies too. While the Filmfare is the Oscars of bollywood it is only for Hindi movies. Some of
the other popular awards now are Star Screen Awards, Zee Cine awards etc. The latest and the most popular
Indian awards are the IIFA awards.

Stars like Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan have won the filmfare award many times in a row.
Amithabh
With LIFA Award

Amitabh Bachchan :
To list a few awards that the Big B has won just scroll down.

King Khan
After winning the National film award 2008
Shah Rukh Khan:- Here is the astonishing true story of Bollywood, a sweeping portrait about a country finding its
identity, a movie industry that changed the face of India, and one man's struggle to become a star..

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Bollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai,
India. The term is often incorrectly used to refer to the whole of Indian cinema; it is only a part of the total
Indian film industry, which includes several regional film industries sorted by language.[1] Bollywood is
the largest film producer in India and one of the largest centers of film production in the world.[2][3][4]
Bollywood is formally referred to as Hindi cinema,[5] though frequent use of poetic Urdu words is fairly
common. There has been a growing presence of Indian English in dialogue and songs as well. It is
common to see films that feature dialogue with English words phrases, or even whole sentences.[6]

Contents
[hide]
• 1 Etymology
• 2 History
○ 2.1 Golden Age
○ 2.2 Modern cinema
• 3 Influences for Bollywood
• 4 Influence of Bollywood
• 5 Genre conventions
• 6 Cast and crew
• 7 Sound
• 8 Bollywood song and dance
• 9 Dialogues and lyrics
• 10 Finances
• 11 Advertising
• 12 Awards
• 13 Film education
• 14 Popularity and appeal
○ 14.1 Africa
 ○ 14.2 Asia
○ 14.3 Europe
○ 14.4 North America
○ 14.5 Oceania
○ 14.6 South America
• 15 Plagiarism
• 16 See also
• 17 References
• 18 Further reading
• 19 External links

Etymology
The name "Bollywood" is derived from Bombay (the former name for Mumbai) and Hollywood, the
center of the American film industry.[7] However, unlike Hollywood, Bollywood does not exist as a
physical place. Though some deplore the name, arguing that it makes the industry look like a poor cousin
to Hollywood,[7][8] it has its own entry in the Oxford English Dictionary.
The term "Bollywood" has origins in the 1970s, when India overtook America as the world's largest film
producer. Credit for the term has been claimed by several different people, including the lyricist,
filmmaker and scholar Amit Khanna,[9] and the journalist Bevinda Collaco.[10]
The naming scheme for "Bollywood" was inspired by "Tollywood", the name that was used to refer to the
cinema of West Bengal. Dating back to 1932, "Tollywood" was the earliest Hollywood-inspired name,
referring to the Bengali film industry based in Tollygunge, which rhymed with "Hollywood" and was the
center of the cinema of India at the time. The name "Bollywood" later arose as the Bombay-based film
industry overtook the one in Tollygunge as the center of the Indian film industry.[11]

History

Film poster for first Indian sound film, Ardeshir Irani's Alam Ara (1931)
Nargis and Raj Kapoor in Awaara (1951), also directed and produced by Kapoor. It was
nominated for the Grand Prize of the 1951 Cannes Film Festival.

Guru Dutt in Pyaasa (1957), for which he was the director, producer and leading actor. It is
one of Time magazine's "All-TIME" 100 best movies.

Raja Harishchandra (1913), by Dadasaheb Phalke, was the first silent feature film made in India. By the
1930s, the industry was producing over 200 films per annum.[12] The first Indian sound film, Ardeshir
Irani's Alam Ara (1931), was a major commercial success. There was clearly a huge market for talkies and
musicals; Bollywood and all the regional film industries quickly switched to sound filming.
The 1930s and 1940s were tumultuous times: India was buffeted by the Great Depression, World War II,
the Indian independence movement, and the violence of the Partition. Most Bollywood films were
unabashedly escapist, but there were also a number of filmmakers who tackled tough social issues, or used
the struggle for Indian independence as a backdrop for their plots.[12]
In 1937, Ardeshir Irani, of Alam Ara fame, made the first colour film in Hindi, Kisan Kanya. The next
year, he made another colour film, Mother India. However, colour did not become a popular feature until
the late 1950s. At this time, lavish romantic musicals and melodramas were the staple fare at the cinema.
Golden Age
Following India's independence, the period from the late 1940s to the 1960s are regarded by film
historians as the "Golden Age" of Hindi cinema.[13][14][15] Some of the most critically-acclaimed Hindi films
of all time were produced during this period. Examples include the Guru Dutt films Pyaasa (1957) and
Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959) and the Raj Kapoor films Awaara (1951) and Shree 420 (1955). These films
expressed social themes mainly dealing with working-class urban life in India; Awaara presented the city
as both a nightmare and a dream, while Pyaasa critiqued the unreality of city life.[16] Some of the most
famous epic films of Hindi cinema were also produced at the time, including Mehboob Khan's Mother
India (1957), which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film,[17] and K.
Asif's Mughal-e-Azam (1960).[18] Madhumati (1958), directed by Bimal Roy and written by Ritwik
Ghatak, popularized the theme of reincarnation in Western popular culture.[19] Other acclaimed
mainstream Hindi filmmakers at the time included Kamal Amrohi and Vijay Bhatt. Successful actors at
the time included Dev Anand, Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor and Guru Dutt, while successful actresses
included Nargis, Meena Kumari, Nutan, Madhubala, Waheeda Rehman and Mala Sinha.[20]
While commercial Hindi cinema was thriving, the 1950s also saw the emergence of a new Parallel Cinema
movement.[16] Though the movement was mainly led by Bengali cinema, it also began gaining prominence
in Hindi cinema. Early examples of Hindi films in this movement include Chetan Anand's Neecha Nagar
(1946)[21] and Bimal Roy's Two Acres of Land (1953). Their critical acclaim, as well as the latter's
commercial success, paved the way for Indian neorealism[22] and the Indian New Wave.[23] Some of the
internationally-acclaimed Hindi filmmakers involved in the movement included Mani Kaul, Kumar
Shahani, Ketan Mehta, Govind Nihalani, Shyam Benegal and Vijaya Mehta.[16]
Ever since the social realist film Neecha Nagar won the Grand Prize at the first Cannes Film Festival,[21]
Hindi films were frequently in competition for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival throughout the
1950s and early 1960s, with some of them winning major prizes at the festival.[24] Guru Dutt, while
overlooked in his own lifetime, had belatedly generated international recognition much later in the 1980s.
[24][25]
Dutt is now regarded as one of the greatest Asian filmmakers of all time, alongside the more famous
Indian Bengali filmmaker Satyajit Ray. The 2002 Sight & Sound critics' and directors' poll of greatest
filmmakers ranked Dutt at #73 on the list.[26] Some of his films are now included among the greatest films
of all time, with Pyaasa (1957) being featured in Time magazine's "All-TIME" 100 best movies list,[27]
and with both Pyaasa and Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959) tied at #160 in the 2002 Sight & Sound critics' and
directors' poll of all-time greatest films. Several other Hindi films from this era were also ranked in the
Sight & Sound poll, including Raj Kapoor's Awaara (1951), Vijay Bhatt's Baiju Bawra (1952), Mehboob
Khan's Mother India (1957) and K. Asif's Mughal-e-Azam (1960) all tied at #346 on the list.[28]
Modern cinema
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, romance movies and action films starred actors like Rajesh Khanna and
Dharmendra, and actresses like Sharmila Tagore, Mumtaz, Leena Chandavarkar and Helen. In the mid-
1970s, romantic confections made way for gritty, violent films about gangsters (see Indian mafia) and
bandits. Amitabh Bachchan, the star known for his "angry young man" roles, rode the crest of this trend
with actors like Mithun Chakraborty and Anil Kapoor, which lasted into the early 1990s. Actresses from
this era included Hema Malini, Jaya Bachchan and Rekha.[20]
Some Hindi filmmakers such as Shyam Benegal continued to produce realistic Parallel Cinema throughout
the 1970s,[29] alongside Mani Kaul, Kumar Shahani, Ketan Mehta, Govind Nihalani and Vijaya Mehta.[16]
However, the 'art film' bent of the Film Finance Corporation came under criticism during a Committee on
Public Undertakings investigation in 1976, which accused the body of not doing enough to encourage
commercial cinema. The 1970s thus saw the rise of commercial cinema in the form of enduring films such
as Sholay (1975), which solidified Amitabh Bachchan's position as a lead actor. The devotional classic Jai
Santoshi Ma was also released in 1975.[30] Another important film from 1975 was Deewar, directed by
Yash Chopra and written by Salim-Javed. A crime film pitting "a policeman against his brother, a gang
leader based on real-life smuggler Haji Mastan", portrayed by Amitabh Bachchan, it was described as
being “absolutely key to Indian cinema” by Danny Boyle.[31] The most internationally-acclaimed Hindi
film of the 1980s was Mira Nair's Salaam Bombay! (1988), which won the Camera d'Or at the 1988
Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the pendulum swung back toward family-centric romantic musicals
with the success of such films as Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (1988), Maine Pyar Kiya (1989), Hum Aapke
Hain Kaun (1994) and Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995), making stars out of a new generation of
actors (such as Aamir Khan, Salman Khan and Shahrukh Khan) and actresses (such as Sridevi, Madhuri
Dixit, Juhi Chawla and Kajol).[20] In that point of time, action and comedy films were also successful, with
actors like Govinda and Akshay Kumar and actresses such as Raveena Tandon and Karisma Kapoor
appearing in films of this genre. Furthermore, this decade marked the entry of new performers in arthouse
and independent films, some of which succeeded commercially, the most influential example being Satya
(1998), directed by Ram Gopal Varma and written by Anurag Kashyap. The critical and commercial
success of Satya led to the emergence of a distinct genre known as Mumbai noir,[32] urban films reflecting
social problems in the city of Mumbai.[33] This led to a resurgence of Parallel Cinema by the end of the
decade.[32] These films often featured actors like Nana Patekar, Manoj Bajpai, Manisha Koirala, Tabu and
Urmila Matondkar, whose performances were usually critically approved.
The 2000s saw a growth in Bollywood's popularity in the world. This led the nation's filmmaking to new
heights in terms of quality, cinematography and innovative story lines as well as technical advances in
areas such as special effects, animation, etc.[34] Some of the largest production houses, among them Yash
Raj Films and Dharma Productions were the producers of new modern films.[34] The opening up of the
overseas market, more Bollywood releases abroad and the explosion of multiplexes in big cities, led to
wider box office successes in India and abroad, including Lagaan (2001), Devdas (2002), Koi... Mil Gaya
(2003), Kal Ho Naa Ho (2003), Veer-Zaara (2004), Rang De Basanti (2006), Lage Raho Munnabhai
(2006), Krrish (2006), Dhoom 2 (2006), Om Shanti Om (2007), Chak De India (2007), Rab Ne Bana Di
Jodi (2008), Ghajini(2008), 3 Idiots (2009), My Name is Khan (2010) and Raajneeti (2010) delivering a
new generation of popular actors (Hrithik Roshan, Abhishek Bachchan, Ranbir Kapoor) and actresses
(Aishwarya Rai, Preity Zinta, Rani Mukerji, Kareena Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra[35][36]), and keeping the
popularity of actors of the previous decade. Among the mainstream films, Lagaan won the Audience
Award at the Locarno International Film Festival and was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at
the 74th Academy Awards, while Devdas and Rang De Basanti were both nominated for the BAFTA
Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
The Hindi film industry has preferred films that appeal to all segments of the audience (see the discussion
in Ganti, 2004, cited in references), and has resisted making films that target narrow audiences. It was
believed that aiming for a broad spectrum would maximise box office receipts. However, filmmakers may
be moving towards accepting some box-office segmentation, between films that appeal to rural Indians,
and films that appeal to urban and overseas audiences.

Influences for Bollywood

Gokulsing and Dissanayake identify six major influences that have shaped the conventions of Indian
popular cinema:[37]
• The ancient Indian epics of Mahabharata and Ramayana which have exerted a
profound influence on the thought and imagination of Indian popular cinema,
particularly in its narratives. Examples of this influence include the techniques of a
side story, back-story and story within a story. Indian popular films often have plots
which branch off into sub-plots; such narrative dispersals can clearly be seen in the
1993 films Khalnayak and Gardish.[37]
• Ancient Sanskrit drama, with its highly stylized nature and emphasis on spectacle,
where music, dance and gesture combined "to create a vibrant artistic unit with
dance and mime being central to the dramatic experience." Sanskrit dramas were
known as natya, derived from the root word nrit (dance), characterizing them as
specacular dance-dramas which has continued Indian cinema.[37] The theory of rasa
dating back to ancient Sanskrit drama is believed to be one of the most fundamental
features that differentiate Indian cinema, particularly Hindi cinema, from that of the
Western world.[38]
• The traditional folk theatre of India, which became popular from around the 10th
century with the decline of Sanskrit theatre. These regional traditions include the
Yatra of Bengal, the Ramlila of Uttar Pradesh, and the Terukkuttu of Tamil Nadu.[37]
• The Parsi theatre, which "blended realism and fantasy, music and dance, narrative
and spectacle, earthy dialogue and ingenuity of stage presentation, integrating them
into a dramatic discourse of melodrama. The Parsi plays contained crude humour,
melodious songs and music, sensationalism and dazzling stagecraft."[37]
• Hollywood, where musicals were popular from the 1920s to the 1950s, though
Indian filmmakers departed from their Hollywood counterparts in several ways. "For
example, the Hollywood musicals had as their plot the world of entertainment itself.
Indian filmmakers, while enhancing the elements of fantasy so pervasive in Indian
popular films, used song and music as a natural mode of articulation in a given
situation in their films. There is a strong Indian tradition of narrating mythology,
history, fairy stories and so on through song and dance." In addition, "whereas
Hollywood filmmakers strove to conceal the constructed nature of their work so that
the realistic narrative was wholly dominant, Indian filmmakers made no attempt to
conceal the fact that what was shown on the screen was a creation, an illusion, a
 fiction. However, they demonstrated how this creation intersected with people's day
to day lives in complex and interesting ways."[37]
• Western musical television, particularly MTV, which has had an increasing influence
since the 1990s, as can be seen in the pace, camera angles, dance sequences and
music of 2000s Indian films. An early example of this approach was in Mani Ratnam's
Bombay (1995).[37]

Influence of Bollywood
In the 2000s, Bollywood began influencing musical films in the Western world, and played a particularly
instrumental role in the revival of the American musical film genre. Baz Luhrmann stated that his musical
film Moulin Rouge! (2001) was directly inspired by Bollywood musicals.[39] The film incorporated an
Indian-themed play based on the ancient Sanskrit drama The Little Clay Cart and a Bollywood-style dance
sequence with a song from the film China Gate. The critical and financial success of Moulin Rouge!
renewed interest in the then-moribund Western musical genre, and subsequently films such as Chicago,
The Producers, Rent, Dreamgirls, Hairspray, Sweeney Todd, Across the Universe, The Phantom of the
Opera, Enchanted and Mamma Mia! were produced, fueling a renaissance of the genre.[40][41]
A. R. Rahman, an Indian film composer, wrote the music for Andrew Lloyd Webber's Bombay Dreams,
and a musical version of Hum Aapke Hain Koun has played in London's West End. The Bollywood
musical Lagaan (2001) was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and two
other Bollywood films Devdas (2002) and Rang De Basanti (2006) were nominated for the BAFTA
Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire (2008), which has won four
Golden Globes and eight Academy Awards, was also directly inspired by Bollywood films,[31][42] and is
considered to be a "homage to Hindi commercial cinema".[21] The theme of reincarnation was also
popularized in Western popular culture through Bollywood films, with Madhumati (1958) inspiring the
Hollywood film The Reincarnation of Peter Proud (1975),[19] which in turn inspired the Bollywood film
Karz (1980), which in turn influenced another Hollywood film Chances Are (1989).[43] The 1975 film
Chhoti Si Baat is believed to have inspired Hitch (2005), which in turn inspired the Bollywood film
Partner (2007).[44]
The influence of Bollywood filmi music can also be seen in popular music elsewhere in the world. For
example, Devo's 1988 hit song "Disco Dancer" was inspired by the song "I am a Disco Dancer" from the
Bollywood film Disco Dancer (1982).[45] The 2002 song "Addictive", sung by Truth Hurts and produced
by DJ Quik and Dr. Dre, was lifted from Lata Mangeshkar's "Thoda Resham Lagta Hai" from Jyoti
(1981).[46] The Black Eyed Peas' Grammy Award winning 2005 song "Don't Phunk with My Heart" was
inspired by two 1970s Bollywood songs: "Ye Mera Dil Yaar Ka Diwana" from Don (1978)[47] and "Ae
Nujawan Hai Sub" from Apradh (1972).[48] Both songs were originally composed by Kalyanji Anandji,
sung by Asha Bhosle, and featured the dancer Helen.[49] Also in 2005, the Kronos Quartet re-recorded
several R. D. Burman compositions, with Asha Bhosle as the singer, into an album You've stolen my heart
- Songs From R D Burman's Bollywood, which was nominated for "Best Contemporary World Music
Album" at the 2006 Grammy Awards. Filmi music composed by A. R. Rahman (who would later win two
Academy Awards for the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack) has frequently been sampled by musicians
elsewhere in the world, including the Singaporean artist Kelly Poon, the Uzbek artist Iroda Dilroz, the
French rap group La Caution, the American artist Ciara, and the German band Löwenherz,[50] among
others. Many Asian Underground artists, particularly those among the overseas Indian diaspora, have also
been inspired by Bollywood music.

Genre conventions
See also: Masala (film genre) and Parallel Cinema

Bollywood films are mostly musicals, and are expected to contain catchy music in the form of song-and-
dance numbers woven into the script. A film's success often depends on the quality of such musical
numbers.[51] Indeed, a film's music is often released before the movie itself and helps increase the
audience.
Indian audiences expect full value for their money, with a good entertainer generally referred to as paisa
vasool, (literally, "money's worth").[52] Songs and dances, love triangles, comedy and dare-devil thrills are
all mixed up in a three-hour-long extravaganza with an intermission. Such movies are called masala films,
after the Hindi word for a spice mixture. Like masalas, these movies are a mixture of many things such as
action, comedy, romance etc. Most films have heroes who are able to fight off villains all by themselves.

Melodrama and romance are common ingredients to Bollywood films. Pictured Achhut
Kanya (1936)

Bollywood plots have tended to be melodramatic. They frequently employ formulaic ingredients such as
star-crossed lovers and angry parents, love triangles, family ties, sacrifice, corrupt politicians, kidnappers,
conniving villains, courtesans with hearts of gold, long-lost relatives and siblings separated by fate,
dramatic reversals of fortune, and convenient coincidences.
There have always been Indian films with more artistic aims and more sophisticated stories, both inside
and outside the Bollywood tradition (see Parallel Cinema). They often lost out at the box office to movies
with more mass appeal. Bollywood conventions are changing, however. A large Indian diaspora in
English speaking countries, and increased Western influence at home, have nudged Bollywood films
closer to Hollywood models.[53]
Film critic Lata Khubchandani writes,"..our earliest films...had liberal doses of sex and kissing scenes in
them. Strangely, it was after Independence the censor board came into being and so did all the
strictures."[54] Plots now tend to feature Westernised urbanites dating and dancing in clubs rather than
centering on pre-arranged marriages. Though these changes can widely be seen in contemporary
Bollywood, traditional conservative ways of Indian culture continue to exist in India outside the industry
and an element of resistance by some to western-based influences.[53] Despite this, Bollywood continues to
play a major role in fashion in India.[53] Indeed some studies into fashion in India have revealed that some
people are unaware that the changing nature of fashion in Bollywood films which are presented to them
are often influenced by globalisation and many consider the clothes worn by Bollywood actors as
authentically Indian.[53]

Cast and crew

for further details see Indian movie actors, Indian movie actresses, Indian film
directors, Indian film music directors and Indian playback singers

Bollywood employs people from all parts of India. It attracts thousands of aspiring actors and actresses, all
hoping for a break in the industry. Models and beauty contestants, television actors, theatre actors and
even common people come to Mumbai with the hope and dream of becoming a star. Just as in Hollywood,
very few succeed. Since many Bollywood films are shot abroad, many foreign extras are employed too.[55]
Stardom in the entertainment industry is very fickle, and Bollywood is no exception. The popularity of the
stars can rise and fall rapidly. Directors compete to hire the most popular stars of the day, who are
believed to guarantee the success of a movie (though this belief is not always supported by box-office
results). Hence many stars make the most of their fame, once they become popular, by making several
movies simultaneously.
Only a very few non-Indian actors are able to make a mark in Bollywood, though many have tried from
time to time. There have been some exceptions, one recent example is the hit film Rang De Basanti, where
the lead actress is Alice Patten, an Englishwoman. Kisna, Lagaan, and The Rising: Ballad of Mangal
Pandey also featured foreign actors.
Bollywood can be very clannish, and the relatives of film-industry insiders have an edge in getting
coveted roles in films or being part of a film's crew. Industry connections are no guarantee of a long
career: competition is fierce and if film industry scions do not succeed at the box office, their careers will
falter. Some of the biggest stars, such as Dharmendra, Amitabh Bachchan, and Shahrukh Khan have
succeeded despite total lack of show business connections. For film clans, see List of Bollywood film
clans.

Sound
Sound in Bollywood films is rarely recorded on location (otherwise known as sync sound). Therefore, the
sound is usually created (or recreated) entirely in the studio,[56] with the actors reciting their lines as their
images appear on-screen in the studio in the process known as "looping in the sound" or ADR—with the
foley and sound effects added later. This creates several problems, since the sound in these films usually
occurs a frame or two earlier or later than the mouth movements or gestures.[56] The actors have to act
twice: once on-location, once in the studio—and the emotional level on set is often very difficult to
recreate. Commercial Indian films, not just the Hindi-language variety, are known for their lack of
ambient sound, so there is a silence underlying everything instead of the background sound and noises
usually employed in films to create aurally perceivable depth and environment.
The ubiquity of ADR in Bollywood cinema became prevalent in the early 1960s with the arrival of the
Arriflex 3 camera, which required a blimp (cover) in order to shield the sound of the camera, for which it
was notorious, from on-location filming. Commercial Indian filmmakers, known for their speed, never
bothered to blimp the camera, and its excessive noise required that everything had to be recreated in the
studio. Eventually, this became the standard for Indian films.
The trend was bucked in 2001, after a 30-year hiatus of synchronized sound, with the film Lagaan, in
which producer-star Aamir Khan insisted that the sound be done on location.[56] This opened up a heated
debate on the use and economic feasibility of on-location sound, and several Bollywood films have
employed on-location sound since then.

Bollywood song and dance

Further information: Hindi dance songs and Filmi

Songs in Bollywood are sung by professional playback singers, rather than actors, who lip-
sync the lyrics. Pictured here is Mukesh, a famed playback singer.
Bollywood dances usually follow filmi songs

Bollywood film music is called filmi music (from Hindi, meaning "of films"). Songs from Bollywood
movies are generally pre-recorded by professional playback singers, with the actors then lip synching the
words to the song on-screen, often while dancing. While most actors, especially today, are excellent
dancers, few are also singers. One notable exception was Kishore Kumar, who starred in several major
films in the 1950s while also having a stellar career as a playback singer. K. L. Saigal, Suraiyya, and Noor
Jehan were also known as both singers and actors. Some actors in the last thirty years have sung one or
more songs themselves; for a list, see Singing actors and actresses in Indian cinema.
Playback singers are prominently featured in the opening credits and have their own fans who will go to
an otherwise lackluster movie just to hear their favourites. Going by the quality as well as the quantity of
the songs they rendered, most notable singers of Bollywood are Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, Geeta
Dutt, Shamshad Begum and Alka Yagnik among female playback singers; and K. L. Saigal, Talat
Mahmood, Mukesh, Mohammed Rafi, Manna Dey, Hemant Kumar, Kishore Kumar, Kumar Sanu,
S.P.Balasubramanyam, Udit Narayan and Sonu Nigam among male playback singers. Mohammed Rafi is
often considered arguably the finest of the singers that have lent their voice to Bollywood songs, followed
by Lata Mangeshkar, who, through the course of a career spanning over six decades, has recorded
thousands of songs for Indian movies. The composers of film music, known as music directors, are also
well-known. Their songs can make or break a film and usually do. Remixing of film songs with modern
beats and rhythms is a common occurrence today, and producers may even release remixed versions of
some of their films' songs along with the films' regular soundtrack albums.
The dancing in Bollywood films, especially older ones, is primarily modelled on Indian dance: classical
dance styles, dances of historic northern Indian courtesans (tawaif), or folk dances. In modern films,
Indian dance elements often blend with Western dance styles (as seen on MTV or in Broadway musicals),
though it is usual to see Western pop and pure classical dance numbers side by side in the same film. The
hero or heroine will often perform with a troupe of supporting dancers. Many song-and-dance routines in
Indian films feature unrealistically instantaneous shifts of location or changes of costume between verses
of a song. If the hero and heroine dance and sing a duet, it is often staged in beautiful natural surroundings
or architecturally grand settings. This staging is referred to as a "picturisation".
Songs typically comment on the action taking place in the movie, in several ways. Sometimes, a song is
worked into the plot, so that a character has a reason to sing. Other times, a song is an externalisation of a
character's thoughts, or presages an event that has not occurred yet in the plot of the movie. In this case,
the event is often two characters falling in love. The songs are also often referred to as a "dream
sequence", and anything can happen that would not normally happen in the real world.
Previously song and dance scenes often used to be shot in Kashmir, but due to political unrest in Kashmir
since the end of the 1980s,[57] those scenes have since then often been shot in Western Europe, particularly
in Switzerland[58] and Austria.[59]
Bollywood films have always used what are now called "item numbers". A physically attractive female
character (the "item girl"), often completely unrelated to the main cast and plot of the film, performs a
catchy song and dance number in the film. In older films, the "item number" may be performed by a
courtesan (tawaif) dancing for a rich client or as part of a cabaret show. The actress Helen was famous for
her cabaret numbers. In modern films, item numbers may be inserted as discotheque sequences, dancing at
celebrations, or as stage shows.
For the last few decades Bollywood producers have been releasing the film's soundtrack, as tapes or CDs,
before the main movie release, hoping that the music will pull audiences into the cinema later. Often the
soundtrack is more popular than the movie. In the last few years some producers have also been releasing
music videos, usually featuring a song from the film. However, some promotional videos feature a song
which is not included in the movie.

Dialogues and lyrics

Main article: Bollywood songs

The film script or lines of dialogue (called "dialogues" in Indian English) and the song lyrics are often
written by different people.
Dialogues are usually written in an unadorned Hindi[5] or Hindustani that would be understood by the
largest possible audience. Some movies, however, have used regional dialects to evoke a village setting, or
old-fashioned courtly Urdu in Mughal era historical films. Contemporary mainstream movies also make
great use of English. Some movie scripts are first written in Roman alphabet.[60] Characters may shift from
one language to the other to express a certain atmosphere (for example, English in a business setting and
Hindi in an informal one).
Cinematic language, whether in dialogues or lyrics, is often melodramatic and invokes God, family,
mother, duty, and self-sacrifice liberally.
Music directors often prefer working with certain lyricists, to the point that the lyricist and composer are
seen as a team. This phenomenon is like the pairings of American composers and songwriters that created
old-time Broadway musicals (e.g., Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, or Alan Jay Lerner and
Frederick Loewe). Song lyrics are usually about love. Bollywood song lyrics, especially in the old movies,
frequently use Arabo-Persic Urdu vocabulary. Another source for love lyrics is the long Hindu tradition of
poetry about the mythological amours of Krishna, Radha, and the gopis. Many lyrics compare the singer
to a devotee and the object of his or her passion to Krishna or Radha.

Finances
Bollywood films are multi-million dollar productions, with the most expensive productions costing up to
100 crores rupees (roughly USD 20 million). Sets, costumes, special effects, and cinematography were
less than world-class up until the mid-to-late 1990s, although with some notable exceptions. As Western
films and television gain wider distribution in India itself, there is an increasing pressure for Bollywood
films to attain the same production levels, particularly in areas such as action and special effects. Recent
Bollywood films have employed international technicians to improve in these areas, such as Krrish (2006)
which has action choreographed by Hong Kong based Tony Ching. The increasing accessibility to
professional action and special effects, coupled with rising film budgets, has seen an explosion in the
action and sci-fi genres.
Sequences shot overseas have proved a real box office draw, so Mumbai film crews are increasingly
filming in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States, continental Europe
and elsewhere. Nowadays, Indian producers are winning more and more funding for big-budget films shot
within India as well, such as Lagaan, Devdas and other recent films.
Funding for Bollywood films often comes from private distributors and a few large studios. Indian banks
and financial institutions were forbidden from lending money to movie studios. However, this ban has
now been lifted.[61] As finances are not regulated, some funding also comes from illegitimate sources, such
as the Mumbai underworld. The Mumbai underworld has been known to be involved in the production of
several films, and are notorious for their patronisation of several prominent film personalities; On
occasion, they have been known to use money and muscle power to get their way in cinematic deals. In
January 2000, Mumbai mafia hitmen shot Rakesh Roshan, a film director and father of star Hrithik
Roshan. In 2001, the Central Bureau of Investigation seized all prints of the movie Chori Chori Chupke
Chupke after the movie was found to be funded by members of the Mumbai underworld.[62]
Another problem facing Bollywood is widespread copyright infringement of its films. Often, bootleg
DVD copies of movies are available before the prints are officially released in cinemas. Manufacturing of
bootleg DVD, VCD, and VHS copies of the latest movie titles is a well established 'small scale industry' in
parts of South Asia and South East Asia. The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry
(FICCI) estimates that the Bollywood industry loses $100 million annually in loss of revenue from pirated
home videos and DVDs. Besides catering to the homegrown market, demand for these copies is large
amongst some sections of the Indian diaspora, too. (In fact, bootleg copies are the only way people in
Pakistan can watch Bollywood movies, since the Government of Pakistan has banned their sale,
distribution and telecast). Films are frequently broadcast without compensation by countless small cable
TV companies in India and other parts of South Asia. Small convenience stores run by members of the
Indian diaspora in the U.S. and the UK regularly stock tapes and DVDs of dubious provenance, while
consumer copying adds to the problem. The availability of illegal copies of movies on the Internet also
contributes to the piracy problem.
Satellite TV, television and imported foreign films are making huge inroads into the domestic Indian
entertainment market. In the past, most Bollywood films could make money; now fewer tend to do so.
However, most Bollywood producers make money, recouping their investments from many sources of
revenue, including selling ancillary rights. There are also increasing returns from theatres in Western
countries like the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States, where Bollywood is slowly getting
noticed. As more Indians migrate to these countries, they form a growing market for upscale Indian films.
For an interesting comparison of Hollywood and Bollywood financial figures, see chart. It shows tickets
sold in 2002 and total revenue estimates. Bollywood sold 3.6 billion tickets and had total revenues (theatre
tickets, DVDs, television etc.) of US$1.3 billion, whereas Hollywood films sold 2.6 billion tickets and
generated total revenues (again from all formats) of US$51 billion.

Advertising
Many Indian artists used to make a living by hand-painting movie billboards and posters (The well-known
artist M.F. Hussain used to paint film posters early in his career). This was because human labour was
found to be cheaper than printing and distributing publicity material.[63] Now, a majority of the huge and
ubiquitous billboards in India's major cities are created with computer-printed vinyl. The old hand-painted
posters, once regarded as ephemera, are becoming increasingly collectible as folk art.[63]
Releasing the film music, or music videos, before the actual release of the film can also be considered a
form of advertising. A popular tune is believed to help pull audiences into the theaters.[64]
Bollywood publicists have begun to use the Internet as a venue for advertising. Most of the better-funded
film releases now have their own websites, where browsers can view trailers, stills, and information about
the story, cast, and crew.[65]
Bollywood is also used to advertise other products. Product placement, as used in Hollywood, is widely
practiced in Bollywood.[66]
Bollywood movie stars appear in print and television advertisements for other products, such as watches
or soap (see Celebrity endorsement). Advertisers say that a star endorsement boosts sales.

Awards
The Filmfare Awards ceremony is one of the most prominent film events given for Hindi films in India.[67]
The Indian screen magazine Filmfare started the first Filmfare Awards in 1954, and awards were given to
the best films of 1953. The ceremony was referred to as the Clare Awards after the magazine's editor.
Modelled after the poll-based merit format of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences,
individuals may submit their votes in separate categories. A dual voting system was developed in 1956.[68]
Like the Oscars, the Filmfare awards are frequently accused of bias towards commercial success rather
than artistic merit.
As the Filmfare, the National Film Awards were introduced in 1954. Since 1973, the Indian government
has sponsored the National Film Awards, awarded by the government run Directorate of Film Festivals
(DFF). The DFF screens not only Bollywood films, but films from all the other regional movie industries
and independent/art films. These awards are handed out at an annual ceremony presided over by the
President of India. Under this system, in contrast to the National Film Awards, which are decided by a
panel appointed by Indian Government, the Filmfare Awards are voted for by both the public and a
committee of experts.[69]
Additional ceremonies held within India are:
• Stardust Awards
• Star Screen Awards
Ceremonies held overseas are:
• Bollywood Movie Awards - Long Island, New York, United States
• Global Indian Film Awards - (different country each year)
• IIFA Awards - (different country each year)
• Zee Cine Awards- (different country each year)
Most of these award ceremonies are lavishly staged spectacles, featuring singing, dancing, and numerous
celebrities.

Film education
• Film and Television Institute of India
• Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute
• Asian Academy of Film & Television

Popularity and appeal

See also: List of highest-grossing Bollywood films

Besides being popular among the India diaspora, such far off locations as Nigeria to Egypt to Senegal and
to Russia generations of non-Indian fans have grown up with Bollywood during the years, bearing witness
to the cross-cultural appeal of Indian movies.[70] Over the last years of the twentieth century and beyond,
Bollywood progressed in its popularity as it entered the consciousness of Western audiences and
producers.[34][71]
Africa
Historically, Hindi films have been distributed to some parts of Africa, largely by Lebanese businessmen.
Mother India (1957), for example, continued to be played in Nigeria decades after its release. Indian
movies have also gained ground so as to alter the style of Hausa fashions, songs have also been copied by
Hausa singers and stories have influenced the writings of Nigerian novelists. Stickers of Indian films and
stars decorate taxis and buses in Northern Nigeria, while posters of Indian films adorn the walls of tailor
shops and mechanics' garages in the country. Unlike in Europe and North America where Indian films
largely cater to the expatriate Indian market yearning to keep in touch with their homeland, in West
Africa, as in many other parts of the world, such movies rose in popularity despite the lack of a significant
Indian audience, where movies are about an alien culture, based on a religion wholly different, and, for the
most part, a language that is unintelligble to the viewers. One such explanation for this lies in the
similarities between the two cultures. Other similarities include wearing turbans; the presence of animals
in markets; porters carrying large bundles, chewing sugar cane; youths riding Bajaj motor scooters;
wedding celebrations, and so forth. With the strict Muslim culture, Indian movies were said to show
"respect" toward women, where Hollywood movies were seen to have "no shame". In Indian movies
women were modestly dressed, men and women rarely kiss, and there is no nudity, thus Indian movies are
said to "have culture" that Hollywood films lack. The latter choice was a failure because "they don't base
themselves on the problems of the people," where the former is based socialist values and on the reality of
developing countries emerging from years of colonialism. Indian movies also allowed for a new youth
culture to follow without such ideological baggage as "becoming western."[70]
Bollywood is also popular among Somalis and the Somali diaspora, where the emerging Islamic Courts
Union found a bete noire.[72] Chad and Ethiopia have also shown an interest in the movies.[73]
Several Bollywood personalities have avenued to the continent for both shooting movies and off-camera
projects. The film Padmashree Laloo Prasad Yadav (2005) was one of many movies shot in South Africa.
[74]
Dil Jo Bhi Kahey (2005) was shot almost entirely in Mauritius, which has a large ethnically Indian
population.
Ominously, however, the popularity of old Bollywood versus a new, changing Bollywood seems to be
diminishing the popularity on the continent. The changing style of Bollywood has begun to question such
an acceptance. The new era features more sexually explicit and violent films. Nigerian viewers, for
example, commented that older films of the 1950s and 1960s had culture to the newer, more westernized
picturizations.[70] The old days of India avidly "advocating decolonization ... and India's policy was wholly
influenced by his missionary zeal to end racial domination and discrimination in the African territories"
were replaced by newer realities.[75] The emergence of Nollywood, Africa's local movie industry has also
contributed to the declining popularity of Bollywood films. A greater globalised world worked in tandem
with the sexualisation of Indian films so as to become more like American films, thus negating the
preferred values of an old Bollywood and diminishing Indian soft power.
Asia
Bollywood films are widely watched in South Asian countries, such as Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and
Sri Lanka.
Many Pakistanis watch Bollywood films, as they understand Hindi (due to its linguistic similarity to
Urdu).[76] Pakistan banned the legal import of Bollywood movies in 1965. However, a thriving trade in
pirated DVDs[77] and illegal cable broadcasts ensured the continued popularity of Bollywood releases in
Pakistan. Exceptions were made for a few films, such as the 2006 colorized re-release of the classic
Mughal-e-Azam or the 2006 film Taj Mahal. Early in 2008, the Pakistani government eased the ban and
allowed the import of even more movies; 16 were screened in 2008.[78] Continued easing followed in 2009
and 2010. The new policy is controversial in Pakistan. It is opposed by ardent nationalists and
representatives of Pakistan's small film industry; it is embraced by cinema owners, who are booking large
profits after years of poor receipts.[79]
Bollywood movies are also popular in Afghanistan due to the country's proximity with the Indian
subcontinent and certain other cultural perspectives present in the movies.[80] A number of Bollywood
movies were filmed inside Afghanistan while some dealt with the country, including Dharmatma, Kabul
Express, Khuda Gawah and Escape From Taliban.[81][82] Hindi films have also been popular in numerous
Arab countries, including Palestine, Jordan, Egypt and the Gulf countries.[83] Imported Indian films are
usually subtitled in Arabic upon the film's release. Since the early 2000s, Bollywood has progressed in
Israel. Special channels dedicated to Indian films have been displayed on cable television.[84] Bollywood
films are also popular across Southeast Asia (particularly the Malay Archipelago)[85] and Central Asia
(particularly in Uzbekistan[86] and Tajikistan).[87]
Some Hindi movies also became big successes in the People's Republic of China during the 1940s and
1950s. The most popular Hindi films in China were Dr. Kotnis Ki Amar Kahani (1946), Awaara (1951)
and Two Acres of Land (1953). Raj Kapoor was a famous movie star in China, and the song "Awara
Hoon" ("I am a Tramp") was popular in the country. Since then, Hindi films significantly declined in
popularity in China, until the Academy Award nominated Lagaan (2001) became the first Indian film to
have a nation-wide release there in decades.[88] The Chinese filmmaker He Ping was impressed by Lagaan,
especially its soundtrack, and thus hired the film's music composer A. R. Rahman to score the soundtrack
for his film Warriors of Heaven and Earth (2003).[89] Several older Hindi films also have a cult following
in Japan, particularly the films directed by the late Guru Dutt.[90]
Europe
The awareness of Hindi cinema is substantial in the United Kingdom,[91] where they frequently enter the
UK top ten. Many films, such as Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001) have been set in London. Bollywood
is also appreciated in France, Germany, the Netherlands,[92] and the Scandinavian countries. Various
Bollywood movies are dubbed in German and shown on the German television channel RTL II on a
regular basis.[93]
Bollywood films are particularly popular in the former Soviet Union. Bollywood films have been dubbed
into Russian, and shown in prominent theatres such as Mosfilm and Lenfilm.
Ashok Sharma, Indian Ambassador to Suriname, who has served three times in the Commonwealth of
Independent States region during his diplomatic career said:
The popularity of Bollywood in the CIS dates back to the Soviet days when the films from
Hollywood and other Western countries were banned in the Soviet Union. As there was no
means of other cheap entertainment, the films from Bollywood provided the Soviets a cheap
source of entertainment as they were supposed to be non-controversial and non-political. In
addition, the Soviet Union was recovering from the onslaught of the Second World War. The
films from India, which were also recovering from the disaster of partition and the struggle
for freedom from colonial rule, were found to be a good source of providing hope with
entertainment to the struggling masses. The aspirations and needs of the people of both
countries matched to a great extent. These films were dubbed in Russian and shown in
theatres throughout the Soviet Union. The films from Bollywood also strengthened family
values, which was a big factor for their popularity with the government authorities in the
Soviet Union.[94]

The film Mera Naam Joker (1970), sought to cater to such an appeal and the popularity of Raj Kapoor in
Russia, when it recruited Russian actress Kseniya Ryabinkina for the movie. In the contemporary era,
Lucky: No Time for Love was shot entirely in Russia. After the collapse of the Soviet film distribution
system, Hollywood occupied the void created in the Russian film market. This made things difficult for
Bollywood as it was losing market share to Hollywood. However, Russian newspapers report that there is
a renewed interest in Bollywood among young Russians.[95]
North America
Bollywood has experienced a marked growth in revenue in North American markets, and is particularly
popular amongst the South Asian communities in large cities as Chicago, Toronto and New York City.[34]
Yash Raj Films, one of India's largest production houses and distributors, reported in September 2005 that
Bollywood films in the United States earn around $100 million a year through theater screenings, video
sales and the sale of movie soundtracks.[34] In other words, films from India do more business in the
United States than films from any other non-English speaking country.[34] Numerous films in the mid-
1990s and onwards have been largely, or entirely, shot in New York, Los Angeles, Vancouver and
Toronto. Bollywood's immersion in the traditional Hollywood domain was further tied with such films as
The Guru (2002) and Marigold: An Adventure in India (2007) trying to popularise the Bollywood-theme
for Hollywood.
Oceania
Bollywood is not as successful in the Oceanic countries and Pacific Islands such as New Guinea.
However, it ranks second to Hollywood in countries such as Fiji, with its large Indian minority, Australia
and New Zealand.[96]
Australia is one of the countries where there is a large South Asian Diaspora. Bollywood is popular
amongst non-Asians in the country as well.[96] Since 1997 the country has provided a backdrop for an
increasing number of Bollywood films.[96] Indian filmmakers have been attracted to Australia's diverse
locations and landscapes, and initially used it as the setting for song-and-dance sequences, which
demonstrated the contrast between the values.[96] However, nowadays, Australian locations are becoming
more important to the plot of Bollywood films.[96] Hindi films shot in Australia usually incorporate aspects
of Australian lifestyle. The Yash Raj Film Salaam Namaste (2005) became the first Indian film to be shot
entirely in Australia and was the most successful Bollywood film of 2005 in the country.[97] This was
followed by Heyy Babyy (2007) Chak De! India (2007) and Singh Is Kinng (2008) which turned out to be
box office successes.[96] Following the release of Salaam Namaste, on a visit to India the then Prime
Minister John Howard also sought, having seen the film, to have more Indian movies shooting in the
country to boost tourism, where the Bollywood and cricket nexus, was further tightened with Steve
Waugh's appointment as tourism ambassador to India.[98] Australian actress Tania Zaetta, who co-starred
in Salaam Namaste, among other Bollywood films, expressed her keenness to expand her career in
Bollywood.[99]
South America
Bollywood movies are not influential in South America, though Bollywood culture and dance is
recognised. In 2006, Dhoom 2 became the first Bollywood film to be shot in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.[100]

Plagiarism
Constrained by rushed production schedules and small budgets, some Bollywood writers and musicians
have been known to resort to plagiarism. Ideas, plot lines, tunes or riffs have been copied from other
Indian film industries or foreign films (including Hollywood and other Asian films). This has led to
criticism towards the film industry.[101]
In past times, this could be done with impunity. Copyright enforcement was lax in India and few actors or
directors ever saw an official contract.[102] The Hindi film industry was not widely known to non-Indian
audiences (excluding the Soviet states), who would not even be aware that their material was being
copied. Audiences may also not have been aware of the plagiarism since many audiences in India were
unfamiliar with foreign films and music. While copyright enforcement in India is still somewhat lenient,
Bollywood and other film industries are much more aware of each other now and Indian audiences are
more familiar with foreign movies and music. Organizations like the India EU Film Initiative seek to
foster a community between film makers and industry professional between India and the EU.[101]
One of the common justifications of plagiarism in Bollywood is that producers often play a safer option by
remaking popular Hollywood films in an Indian context. Screenwriters generally produce original scripts,
but due to financial uncertainty and insecurity over the success of a film many were rejected.[101]
Screenwriters themselves have been criticised for lack of creativity which happened due to tight schedules
and restricted funds in the industry to employ better screenwriters.[103] Certain filmmakers see plagiarism
in Bollywood as an integral part of globalisation where American and western cultures are firmly
embedding themselves into Indian culture, which is manifested, amongst other mediums, in Bollywood
films.[103] Vikram Bhatt, director of films such as Raaz, a remake of What Lies Beneath, and Kasoor, a
remake of Jagged Edge, has spoken about the strong influence of American culture and desire to produce
box office hits based along the same lines in Bollywood. He said, "Financially, I would be more secure
knowing that a particular piece of work has already done well at the box office. Copying is endemic
everywhere in India. Our TV shows are adaptations of American programmes. We want their films, their
cars, their planes, their diet cokes and also their attitude. The American way of life is creeping into our
culture."[103] Mahesh Bhatt has said, "If you hide the source, you're a genius. There's no such thing as
originality in the creative sphere".[103]
There have been very few cases of film copyright violations taken to court because of serious delays in the
legal process, and due to the long time they take to decide a case.[101] There have been some notable cases
of conflict though. The makers of Partner (2007) and Zinda (2005) have been targeted by the owners and
distributors of the original films, Hitch and Oldboy.[104][105] American Studio Twentieth Century Fox
brought the Mumbai-based B.R. Films to court over its forthcoming Banda Yeh Bindaas Hai, allegedly an
illegal remake of its 1992 film My Cousin Vinny. B.R. Films eventually settled out of court by paying the
studio at a cost of about $200,000, paving the way for the film's release.[106] Some on the other hand do
comply with copyright law, with Orion Pictures recently securing the rights to remake the Hollywood film
Wedding Crashers.[107]

See also
• Cinema of the world
• Bollywood songs
• Hindi dance songs
• Cinema of India
• List of Bollywood films
• List of highest-grossing Bollywood films
• List of Bollywood film clans
• Central Board of Film Certification
• Film City

Tamil cinema
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

For other regional Tamil film industries, see List of Sri Lankan Tamil films and List of
Canadian Tamil films.

Tamil cinema (Tamil: தமிழ் சினிமாா , also referred to as the cinema of Tamil Nadu, the Tamil film
industry, or Chennai film industry) is the Tamil language filmmaking industry, based in Chennai, Tamil
Nadu, India. It is based in Chennai's Kodambakkam district, where Tamil language feature films are
produced, which has led to a reference to the district and industry as Kollywood (Tamil: ோகாலிவுட்
kōlivūṭ), a portmanteau of the words Kodambakkam and Hollywood. Tamil cinema is known for being
India's second largest film industry after Hindi Film Industry in terms of revenue and worldwide
distribution.[1]
Silent movies were produced in Chennai since 1916 and the era of talkies dawned in 1931 with the film
Kalidas. By the end of the 1930s, the State of Madras legislature passed the Entertainment Tax Act 1939.
Tamil Nadu cinema has had a profound effect on the film making industries of India, with Chennai
becoming a hub for the filmmaking industries of other languages, including Telugu cinema, Malayalam
cinema, Kannada cinema, Hindi cinema, Sinhalese cinema and Sri Lankan Tamil cinema in the 1900s,
which makes it a legal claim to be the real Indian film capital, ahead of Mumbai. Tamil–language films
are further made in other countries. Today, Tamil films are distributed to various overseas theatres in
South Asia, including Sri Lanka, Singapore, and Malaysia; East Asia, including Japan and South Korea;
as well as Oceania, Southern Africa, Western Europe, North America, and other significant Tamil
diaspora regions.

Contents
[hide]
• 1 History
○ 1.1 Early exhibitors
○ 1.2 Film studios
○ 1.3 Film music
○ 1.4 Politics
• 2 Distribution and popularity
• 3 Actors
• 4 Union associations
• 5 Business model
○ 5.1 Distribution business model
○ 5.2 Exhibition business model
• 6 Industrial trends
• 7 Domestic exhibitors
• 8 See also
• 9 References
• 10 Further reading

[edit] History
A visiting European exhibitor first screened (date unknown) a selection of silent short films at the Victoria
Public Hall in Madras. The films all featured non-fictional subjects; they were mostly photographed
records of day-to-day events.
[edit] Early exhibitors
A scene from the Tamil movie Chandralekha released in 1948.

In Madras (now known as Chennai), the Electric Theatre was established for the screening of silent films.
It was a favourite haunt of the British community in Madras. The theatre was shut down after a few years.
This building is now part of a post office complex on Anna Salai (Mount Road). The Lyric Theatre was
also built in the Mount Road area. This venue boasted a variety of events, including plays in English,
Western classical music concerts, and ballroom dances. Silent films were also screened as an additional
attraction. Samikannu Vincent, an employee of the South Indian Railways in Trichy, purchased a film
projector and silent films from the Frenchman Du Pont and set up a business as film exhibitor. He erected
tents for screening films. His tent cinema became popular and he travelled all over the state with his
mobile unit. In later years, he produced talkies and also built a cinema in Coimbatore.
To celebrate the event of King George V's visit in 1909, a grand exhibition was organised in Madras. Its
major attraction was the screening of short films accompanied by sound. A British company imported a
Crone megaphone, made up of a film projector to which a gramophone with a disc containing prerecorded
sound was linked, and both were run in unison, producing picture and sound simultaneously. However,
there was no synched dialogue. Raghupathy Venkiah Naidu, a successful photographer, took over the
equipment after the exhibition and set up a tent cinema near the Madras High Court. R. Venkiah, flush
with funds, built in 1912 a permanent cinema in the Mount Road area named Gaiety Theatre. It was the
first in Madras to screen films on a full-time basis. This theatre is still functioning, although under
different ownership.
In tent cinemas, there were usually three classes of tickets: the floor, bench and, chair. The floor-ticket
purchaser sat on sand to watch the movie, but he enjoyed certain advantages that other patrons did not. He
could sit as he pleased, or he could turn over and take a short nap when the narrative was particularly dull
and roll back again when the action was again to his liking—luxuries in which the upper class could never
indulge.
[edit] Film studios
1916 marked the birth of Tamil cinema with the first Madras production and South Indian film release
Keechaka Vaadham (The Destruction of Keechaka).[2] During the 1920s, silent Tamil-language movies
were shot at makeshift locations in and around Chennai, and for technical processing, they were sent to
Pune or Calcutta. Later some movies featuring M. K. Thyagaraja Bhagavathar were shot in Pune and
Calcutta. In the 1930s AVM set up its makeshift studio in the town of Karaikudi, and during the same
decade, full-fledged Movie studios were built in Salem (Modern Theatres Studio) and Coimbatore
(Central Studios, Neptune, and Pakshiraja). By the mid 1940s, Chennai became the hub of Studio activity
with two more movie Studios built in Chennai, Vijaya Vauhini Studios and Gemini Studios. Later, AVM
Studios shifted its operations to Chennai. Thus, with the undivided Madras Presidency being the Capital to
most of South India, Chennai became the center for Tamil- and notable Telugu-language movies. Also,
most of the pre-independence era drama and stage actors joined the movie industry from the 1940s, and
Chennai became the hub for South Indian–language film production and Sri Lankan cinema before
independence.
[edit] Film music
Main article: Music of Tamil Nadu
Ilaiyaraaja and A. R. Rahman are music directors from the Chennai film industry and have an
international following.[3][4] Other prominent Tamil film score and soundtrack composers in the industry
include Yuvan Shankar Raja, Harris Jayaraj, Karthik Raja and Vidyasagar. Several international
composers have used Chennai's studios to record music for projects, as have composers from other film
industries. S. Rajeswara Rao was based in Chennai from the 1940s. During the 2000's film composer M.
S. Viswanathan was popular, with interest in Tamil film songs being re-ignited with the audio revolution.
[5]

[edit] Politics
Main article: Tamil cinema and Dravidian politics

The Tamil film industry has a long intertwining link with politics, dating from the earliest days of regional
cinema, where stories, themes and characters derived from Tamil traditional folk ballads have inspired
screenplays and have become vehicles for creating future politicians.[6] The first non congress Chief
Minister C. N. Annadurai and the current Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi were directors and script writers.
M. G. Ramachandran, who was a commercial film actor, had served as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu
for more than a decade. The current opposition leader J. Jayalalithaa was also an actress. And current
members of legislative assembly(MLA) of Tamil Nadu includes Vijayakanth and S.Ve.Sekar.

[edit] Distribution and popularity

See also: List of Tamil-language films and List of highest-grossing Tamil-language films

Tamil films constitute India's most popular films along with Hindi films.[7] They have one of the widest
overseas distribution, with large audience turnout from the Tamil diaspora alongside Hindi films. The
Chennai film industry produced the first nationally distributed film across India in 1948 with
Chandralekha.
Tamil films have enjoyed consistent popularity among populations in India, Sri Lanka, Singapore, South
Africa, Canada and Malaysia. They have recently become popular in Japan (particularly Muthu, directed
by K. S. Ravikumar, and Indira, directed by Suhasini Mani Ratnam).
Ayngaran International and BIG Cinemas have emerged as the top distributors for Tamil films in the UK
and US markets respectively.
Within India, Aascar Films, Pyramid Saimira, AGS Entertainment, et al handle distribution. The most
successful Tamil film ever, K. S. Ravikumar-directed Dasavathaaram, was distributed by Walt Disney
Pictures in Canada.
Many Tamil-language films have premiered or have been selected as special presentations at various
prestigious film festivals across the world, such as Mani Ratnam's Kannathil Muthamittal, Veyyil and
Ameer Sultan's Paruthiveeran. More recently, Kanchivaram, directed by Priyadarshan, was selected to be
premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. Films like Thevar Magan, Indian and Jeans had been
selected by India for Best Foreign Language Film for the Academy Awards. Mani Ratnam's Nayagan
(1987) was included in Time magazine's "All-TIME" 100 best movies list.[8]
Tamil films enjoy significant patronage in neighbouring Indian states like Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra
Pradesh. In Kerala and Karnataka the films are directly released in Tamil but in Andhra Pradesh they are
generally dubbed into Telugu. Many successful Tamil films have been remade by the Hindi and Telugu
film industries. It is estimated by the Manorama Yearbook 2000 (a popular almanac) that over 5,000
Tamil films were produced in the 20th century. Tamil films have also been dubbed into other languages,
thus reaching a much wider audience.
Tamil language films are produced in other cinema hubs. The film My Magic directed by Singaporean
Eric Khoo became Singapore's first film to be nominated for the Palme d'Or at Cannes. There has been a
growing presence of English in dialogue and songs in Chennai films. It is not uncommon to see movies
that feature dialogue studded with English words and phrases, or even whole sentences. Some movies are
also simultaneously made in two or three languages (either using subtitles or several soundtracks).
Chennai's film composers have popularised their highly unique, syncretic style of film music across the
world. Quite often, Tamil movies feature Madras Tamil, a colloquial version of Tamil spoken in Chennai.
[edit] Actors
Further information: List of Tamil film actors

○ Tamil cinema was dominated by P. U. Chinnappa and M. K. Thyagaraja Bhagavathar

during the 1940s.[9][10]
○ From the 1950s through the 1970s, the industry was dominated by M. G.
Ramachandran and Sivaji Ganesan.[11]
○ From the 1980s till date, Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan have maintained a strong
grip on the box office despite the introduction of new technologies and business
models.
○ Since the 2000s, Vijay, Ajith, Vikram, Surya and Silambarasan have become
dominant.

[edit] Union associations

The industry includes several groups who organize their own events based on different issues of major
concern. Rather than forming separate and distinct groups, each association occasionally collaborate for
certain events. These associations are based on profession in the industry, such as a directors' association
or producers' association.
The most notable association is the South Indian Film Artistes' Association which is a group of all
prominent Tamil film actors. Formed in 1952 under the leadership of actor Sivaji Ganesan[citation needed], the
association has continued to conduct several protests and hunger strikes for certain political and
humanitarian issues, in efforts to make positive changes in the Indian and Tamil society. Specifically, they
govern film or media-related problems or conflicts that may arise to its members. The current president of
the association is the actor-turned-politician R. Sarath Kumar.
Other associations include the Association of Tamil Film Directors which is headed by director
Bharathiraja and the Tamil Film Producers' Council, headed by film producer Rama Narayanan, who often
meet to make cinema-related decisions. A more general association that incorporates all kinds of film
personalities (actors, directors, producers, cinematographers, composers, etc.) include the well known
Film Employees' Federation of South India (FEFSI). They often successfully pledge for the welfare of
low-income film workers, such as lighting technicians and stunt coordinators.

[edit] Business model

There are 3 major roles in the Tamil film value chain viz producer, distributor and exhibitor.[12]
[edit] Distribution business model
The distributor purchases theatrical distribution rights from the producer for exhibiting the film in a
defined territory. The distributor performs enhanced functions such as:
1. part-financing of film (incase of minimum guarantee / advance based purchase of film
rights)
2. localised marketing of film
3. selection of exhibition halls
4. managing the logistics of physical print distribution
There are three popular approaches to transfer of distribution rights via distribution contracts:
1. Minimum Guarantee + Royalty - Here, the producer sells the distribution rights for a
defined territory for a minimum lump sum irrespective of the box office performance
of the film. Any surplus is shared between the producer and distributor, in a pre-set
ratio (typically 1:2) after deducting entertainment tax, show rentals, commission,
print costs and publicity costs. Effectively, the distributor becomes a "financier" in the
eyes of the market. This is the most common channel available to high budget
producers.
2. Commission - Here, the distributor pays the producer the entire box office collection
after deducting commission. So, the entire risk of box office performance of the film
 remains with the producer. This is the most common channel available to low budget
producers.
3. Outright Sale - Here, the producer sells all distribution and theatrical rights for a
defined territory exclusively to a distributor. Effectively, the distributor becomes a
"producer" in the eyes of the market. So, the entire risk of box office performance of
the film remains with the distributor.
[edit] Exhibition business model
There are four popular approaches to transfer of exhibition rights via exhibition contracts:
1. Theatre Hire - Here, the exhibitor pays the distributor the entire box office collection
after deducting entertainment tax and show rentals. So, the entire risk of box office
performance of the film remains with the distributor. This is the most common
channel for low budget films, casting rank newcomers, with unproven track record.
2. Fixed Hire - Here, the exhibitor pays the distributor a maximum lump sum
irrespective of the box office performance of the film. Rental is not chargeable per
show. Any surplus after deducting entertainment tax is retained by the exhibitor.
Effectively, the exhibitor becomes a "producer" in the eyes of the market. So, the
entire risk of box office performance of the film remains with the exhibitor. This is the
most common channel for high budget films, casting established front-runners, with
proven track record.
3. Minimum Guarantee + Royalty - Here, the exhibitor pays the distributor a minimum
lump sum irrespective of the box office performance of the film. Any surplus after
deducting entertainment tax and show rental is shared in a pre-set ratio (typically
2:1) between the exhibitor and distributor. But risk of deficit remains with the
exhibitor. This is the most common channel preferred by single screens.
4. Revenue Share - Here, the exhibitor shares with the distributor, in a pre-set ratio
(typically 1:2), the entire box office collection of the film after deducting
entertainment tax. Rental is not chargeable per show. So, the entire risk of box office
performance of the film is shared between the exhibitor and distributor. This is the
most common channel preferred by multiplex screens.

[edit] Industrial trends

Annual film output in Tamil market

Average annual film output in Tamil film industry peaked in 1985.

Given below is a chart of trend of box office collections of cinemas in Tamil Nadu with figures in millions
of United States Dollars. The data excludes the market segments of in-film advertisement, celebrity
branding, mobile entertainment, stage, DVD and other intellectual property rights.
Chandralekha produced in 1948 at a cost of almost $600,000 ($28 million in 2008 prices) remains the
most expensive Tamil film ever. The film was released in 609 screens worldwide with subtitles.
The Tamil film market accounts for approximately 0.1% of the gross domestic product of the state of
Tamil Nadu. In the year 2007 a record 108 movies were released.[13] For the purpose of entertainment
taxes, returns have to be filed by the exhibitors weekly (usually each Tuesday). [14] Costs of production
have grown exponentially from just under 40 lakhs in 1980 to over 11 crores by 2005 for a typical star-
studded big-budget film. Similarly, costs of processing per print have risen from just under 2,500 in 1980
to nearly 70,000 by 2005.[citation needed]
The Tamil Nadu government has made provisions for an entertainment tax exemption for Tamil movies
having pure Tamil word(s) in the title. This is in accordance with Government Order 72 passed on July 22,
2006. The first film to be released after the new Order was Unakkum Enakkum. The original title had been
Something Something Unakkum Ennakkum, a half-English and a half-Tamil title.

[edit] Domestic exhibitors

There are about 1800 cinema-halls located in Tamil Nadu.[15]