Moving images were first screened in India on 7 July 1896 in Bombay (now Mumbai), and local filmmaking began in the following year. 1913 saw the release of the first Indian feature-length film, Raja Harishchandra/ King Harishchandra, a story from the Mahabharata by D.G. (‘Dadasaheb’) Phalke, a pioneering director who established Bombay as the centre of Indian film production. At this time, there was already a huge, largely urban working-class, cinemagoing public. By the 1920s, a number of self-sufficient production companies were established, and India’s film output had exceeded that of Britain in both quantity and profitability. Other key directors of the silent era include Baburao Painter (Vatsala Haran, 1923) and V. Shantaram (Gopal Krishna, 1929), and the most popular genres of the silent era were dramas in contemporary settings (‘socials’), for example Bilat Ferat/England Returned (Dhiren Ganguly, 1921), and ‘mythologicals’—films based around Indian legends.
Kuhn, A., & Westwell, G. (2020). India, film in. In A Dictionary of Film Studies. : Oxford University Press. Retrieved 13 May. 2021
You can use the subject heading below to find resources in the online catalog. The call number range is also included.
You can find scholarly articles about Indian cinema in a variety of publications. We don't have a journal specific to Indian cinema, but you can search in film journals for articles. You can use Film & Television Literature Index, the Screen Studies Collection or Web of Science to find articles or use the search box at the top of the page.
Find more Indian cinema titles in the library's online catalog.
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