Indian music genius A.R. Rahman, who become the toast of the world with his score for blockbuster "Slumdog Millionaire", can be credited with taking the Indian sound across the seas and who has for long comfortably straddled the worlds of not just classical and popular music but also Bollywood and Broadway.
Prior to Rahman's victory on Oscar front, the over $2 billion Indian film industry managed to lure Hollywood biggies like Warner Bros and Walt Disney to invest in it in 2008.
What’s more, some homegrown production majors also managed to penetrate Western projects. Among notable deals were Yash Raj Films collaborating with Walt Disney, Ramesh Sippy with Warner Bros for the Akshay Kumar-starrer “Chandni Chowk To China” and Reliance BIG Entertainment with Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks SKG to produce 36 films.
The Indian film industry is set to get top revenues of $3.66 billion by 2012 as it rides new technologies and a booming economy set to expand at the rate of 18 percent per year.
History
Indian cinema is more than hundred years old and today it is one of the biggest film industries in the world. Not only that it is also one of the largest employment sectors in the country.
The first films in India were directed by Hiralal Sen, titled “The Flower of Persia”, it was a short film was released in 1898. Fifteen years later, Dadasaheb Phalke became the first Indian to make first full length feature film. Titled “Raja Harishchandra”, it was a sikent film and hit the screens in 1913.
Calcutta-based business Jamshedji Framji Madan, who oversaw production of 10 films annually and distributed them throughout the Indian subcontinent, became the first Indian to own chain of theaters.
After that there was no looking back for the Indian film industry. In the early 20th century, cinema as a medium gained popularity across the country and and people thronged cinema halls. The content of Indian commercial cinema was increasingly tailored to appeal to these masses.
Young producers began to incorporate elements of India's social life and culture into cinema.
Others bought with them ideas from across the world. This was also the time when global audiences and markets became aware of India's film industry.
Almost for two decades filmmakers churned out silent movies.
In 1931, “Alam Ara”, first the first Indian talking film made by Ardeshir Irani was released. 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.
During the same period studios emerged across major cities such as Chennai, Kolkata, and Mumbai as filmmaking became an established craft by 1935, exemplified by the success of “Devdas”, which had managed to enthrall audiences nationwide.
Bombay Talkies came up in 1934 and Prabhat Studios in Pune had begun production of films meant for the Marathi language audience.
After the success of “Devdas”, romantic films became in vogue and it it started dominating the script following the second world war.
South Indian cinema gained prominence throughout India with the release of S.S. Vasan's “Chandralekha”. During the 1940s cinema in South India accounted for nearly half of India's cinema halls and cinema came to viewed as an instrument of cultural revival.
The partition of India following its independence divided the nation's assets and a number of studios went to the newly formed Pakistan. The strife of partition would become an enduring subject for film making during the decades that followed.
After the independence S.K. Patil Commission was set up to give a report on India cinema. Patil viewed cinema in India as a 'combination of art, industry, and showmanship' while noting its commercial value. He recommended setting up of a Film Finance Corporation under the Ministry of Finance. His advice was taken up in 1960 and the institution came into being to provide financial support to talented filmmakers throughout India.
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 annually, each released in 18 languages with 9000 prints for permanent film theaters across the country.
In the 1940s and 1950s the Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA), an art movement with a communist inclination, began to take shapes. 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.
The period from the late 1940s to the 1960s is described at the 'Golden Age' of Indian cinema. Some of the most critically acclaimed Indian films of all time were produced during this period. It includes “Pyaasa” (1957) and “Kaagaz Ke Phool” (1959) and Raj Kapoor's “Awaara” (1951) and “Shree 420” (1955), and Mehboob Khan's “Mother India” (1957), which was nominated for the Academy Award in the Best Foreign Language Film. All these films highlighted the current social issues in India.
V. Shantaram's “Do Aankhen Barah Haath” (1957) is believed to have inspired the Hollywood film “The Dirty Dozen” (1967). Madhumati (1958), directed by Bimal Roy and written by Ritwik Ghatak, popularized the theme of reincarnation in Western popular culture. Other acclaimed mainstream Hindi filmmakers at the time included Kamal Amrohi and Vijay Bhatt.
Other regional industries also had their 'Golden Age' during this period. Tamil cinema churned out number of commercially successful films by M. G. Ramachandran, Sivaji Ganesan, M. N. Nambiyar, Asokan and Nagesh. Marathi film industyr too made it big in the leadership of V. Shantaram.
Chetan Anand's 1946 “Neecha Nagar” won the Grand Prize at the first Cannes Film Festival and after that 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.
A decade later Satyajit Ray won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival for “Aparajito”, and the Golden Bear and two Silver Bears for Best Director at the Berlin International Film Festival.
After that Indian cinema kept evolving and has become one of the largest film producing industry in the world. It churns out about 1000 film every year in all the languages. And many of the films made here have world wide release.
Apart from Raj Kapor and Satyajit Ray current big names like Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan too helped in creating awareness about Indian cinema on global arena.
The government of India gave the motion picture industry the status of an industry in 2001, making it easier for film producers to obtain institutional financing.
Training Institutes
1. Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune
Established as an autonomous Institute under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India in 1960, FTII is situated in the premises of the Prabhat Film Company in Pune.
Hailed as one of the premier film and TV institutes in the country, it offers multiple courses in fields like direction, acting, cinematography, art direction and production design, editing, animation and computer graphics, sound recording & sound design and feature film screenplay writing, etc.
Some of the noted alumni of the institute include the likes of Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Mahesh Bhatt, Girish Kasaravalli, Naseeruddin Shah, Mithun Chakraborty, Shabana Azmi, Jaya Bachchan and Oscar-winning technician Resul Pookutty, etc.
2. Satyajit Ray Film & Television Insitute, Kolkata
An autonomous academic institution under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India - Satyajit Ray Film & Television Institute was established in 1995.
Located in Kolkata and named after the legendary filmmaker Satyajit Ray, the Institute is the second of its kind in the country.
It offers courses specialisations in Direction & Screenplay, Cinematography, Audiography and Editing.
Set up by the Sangeet Natak Akademi in 1959 as one of its constituent units, National School of Drama is one of the foremost theatre training institutions in the country and it has also given Hindi film industry some of the best actors like Pankaj Kapur, Om Puri and Anupam Kher.
It became an independent entity in 1975 and was registered as an autonomous organisation under the Societies Registration Act XXI of 1860, fully financed by Ministry of Culture, Government of India.
The School has two performing wings – Repertory and Theatre-in-Education. The Repertory Company was set up with the aim of providing a platform for graduates to produce and perform creative theatre on an experimental and later professional basis.
While, the latter was established in 1989 with the objective of promoting theatre amongst children in the age group of 8 to 16 years. It was later renamed The Sanskaar Rang Toli.