By Rima Bhatia and Stacey Yount
So you think you know Bollywood? The glamour, the gossip and all the secrets? Do you consider yourself a Bollywood expert? Well, to test our research skills to find some of the most hidden and obscure facts, we have put together a list to test your Bolly-knowledge.
So settle down with a warm drink and read away… and don’t forget to comment how many facts you knew… and which fact blew your mind!
The first short film from India was 1898’s Hiralal Sen’s The Flower of Persia.
Dadasaheb Phalke’s Raja Harishchandra is known as The first full length feature film from India. The black and white film released on May 3, 1913 in Mumbai. It was only 40 minutes long.
Ram Chandra Gopal “Dadasaheb” Torne’s Shree Pundalik was the very first film; it was shown in Mumbai on 18 May 1912. However, it was processed overseas and is only 22 minutes.
So you think you know Bollywood? The glamour, the gossip and all the secrets? Do you consider yourself a Bollywood expert? Well, to test our research skills to find some of the most hidden and obscure facts, we have put together a list to test your Bolly-knowledge.
So settle down with a warm drink and read away… and don’t forget to comment how many facts you knew… and which fact blew your mind!
The first short film from India was 1898’s Hiralal Sen’s The Flower of Persia.
Dadasaheb Phalke’s Raja Harishchandra is known as The first full length feature film from India. The black and white film released on May 3, 1913 in Mumbai. It was only 40 minutes long.
Ram Chandra Gopal “Dadasaheb” Torne’s Shree Pundalik was the very first film; it was shown in Mumbai on 18 May 1912. However, it was processed overseas and is only 22 minutes.
- 3/28/2020
- by BollySpice Team
- Bollyspice
It’s been a long and eventful technological journey for Hindi cinema over the decades, though not all technology-driven changes or (r)evolutions have been welcomed, at least initially, with open arms. Proof of this lies in the fact that when Alam Ara, India’s first talkie (in Hindi) was released by Ardeshir Irani in 1931, we stillRead More
The post Tech That: Technological evolution in Hindi cinema – Part I appeared first on Bollywood Hungama.
The post Tech That: Technological evolution in Hindi cinema – Part I appeared first on Bollywood Hungama.
- 11/10/2017
- by Rajiv Vijayakar
- BollywoodHungama
Martin Scorsese’s The Film Foundation is among the organsiations working with India’s Film Heritage Foundation on a film preservation workshop that kicks off this week (Feb 26-March 6).
Overseas partners also include The International Federation of Film Archives (Fiaf), George Eastman Museum, the Selznick School of Film Preservation and Italy’s L’Immagine Ritrovata. In addition to Film Heritage Foundation, established by Indian filmmaker Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, local organisers include the National Film Archive of India (Nfai) and Viacom18.
“The language of cinema is universal,” said Scorsese, announcing the workshop. “In a time of great divisions, conflicts, transformations, it’s really crucial to preserve and share our cultural patrimonies and to ensure that this universal language will speak to future generations around the world.”
The 10-day workshop, which will take place at Nfai’s headquarters in Pune, covers the technology and ethics involved in film preservation as India races to save its film heritage. “This is a unique...
Overseas partners also include The International Federation of Film Archives (Fiaf), George Eastman Museum, the Selznick School of Film Preservation and Italy’s L’Immagine Ritrovata. In addition to Film Heritage Foundation, established by Indian filmmaker Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, local organisers include the National Film Archive of India (Nfai) and Viacom18.
“The language of cinema is universal,” said Scorsese, announcing the workshop. “In a time of great divisions, conflicts, transformations, it’s really crucial to preserve and share our cultural patrimonies and to ensure that this universal language will speak to future generations around the world.”
The 10-day workshop, which will take place at Nfai’s headquarters in Pune, covers the technology and ethics involved in film preservation as India races to save its film heritage. “This is a unique...
- 2/23/2016
- by lizshackleton@gmail.com (Liz Shackleton)
- ScreenDaily
Los Angeles hosts annual showcase featuring extensive array of work from contemporary and veteran film-makers
The annual celebration of Iranian cinema run by the University of California, Los Angeles, is a vital occasion for two dynamic and overlapping constituencies: cinephiles and Iranians in Los Angeles. The festival's screenings routinely draw large audiences, eager to see films from a nation distinguished by its rich and sustained contribution to world cinema. This year's programme underscored the depth and diversity of cinematic voices in Iranian life.
In recent years, the archive has expanded the scope to include older films, working with Iran's national film archive and exiled filmmakers such as Parviz Sayyad to present seminal works such as The Lor Girl (Dokhtar-e Lor; 1933), directed by Ardeshir Irani; Masoud Kimiai's Caesar (Qaisar; 1969); and Sayyad's own Dead End (Bon Bast; 1977). This year, the festival began with a screening of Bahram Beyzaie's first feature film,...
The annual celebration of Iranian cinema run by the University of California, Los Angeles, is a vital occasion for two dynamic and overlapping constituencies: cinephiles and Iranians in Los Angeles. The festival's screenings routinely draw large audiences, eager to see films from a nation distinguished by its rich and sustained contribution to world cinema. This year's programme underscored the depth and diversity of cinematic voices in Iranian life.
In recent years, the archive has expanded the scope to include older films, working with Iran's national film archive and exiled filmmakers such as Parviz Sayyad to present seminal works such as The Lor Girl (Dokhtar-e Lor; 1933), directed by Ardeshir Irani; Masoud Kimiai's Caesar (Qaisar; 1969); and Sayyad's own Dead End (Bon Bast; 1977). This year, the festival began with a screening of Bahram Beyzaie's first feature film,...
- 7/31/2013
- The Guardian - Film News
May 3, 1913 went down in history as the release date of the first Indian film Raja Harishchandra by Dadasaheb Phalke. Exactly 100 years later releases a documentary Celluloid Man by Shivendra Singh Dungarpur that leads us to the man responsible for finding and preserving whatever remained of India’s first film and the films that were made thereafter. The man who gave us our cinematic history by building the National Film Archive. DearCinema.com reproduces a detailed interview with P.K Nair. This interview was recorded in Pune in 2008 for Asian Film Foundation to mark his felicitation with Satyajit Ray Memorial Award.
What memories do you have of watching your first film?
It was in the early forties, at the height of war. I must have been hardly eight years old.
The venue: a Tent Cinema in Thiruvnanthapuram Putharikandam Maidan, almost the same venue of the present Padmanabha Theatre. Nearly half the...
What memories do you have of watching your first film?
It was in the early forties, at the height of war. I must have been hardly eight years old.
The venue: a Tent Cinema in Thiruvnanthapuram Putharikandam Maidan, almost the same venue of the present Padmanabha Theatre. Nearly half the...
- 5/2/2013
- by Bikas Mishra
- DearCinema.com
In the second of two Yorkshire tributes to a century of Indian cinema, Irfan Ajeeb describes the extraordinary power of Bollywood film makers and stars
1999. It was a muggy night and approaching the end of a long and arduous day. The festivities were coming to a close and I was restively glancing at my watch as I knew I had yet to endure a four-hour drive to London. It was approaching midnight. Overdosing on coffee and chewing gum, I was anxious but at the same time excited - like a little kid waiting to open his presents on his tenth birthday.
The journey had begun as we set off on an empty M1. Sat on the back seat was the Indian actress, Pooja Bhatt, who had attended the Bite the Mango film festival at the then National Museum of Photography, Film & Television for an on-stage Screentalk interview. She had insisted...
1999. It was a muggy night and approaching the end of a long and arduous day. The festivities were coming to a close and I was restively glancing at my watch as I knew I had yet to endure a four-hour drive to London. It was approaching midnight. Overdosing on coffee and chewing gum, I was anxious but at the same time excited - like a little kid waiting to open his presents on his tenth birthday.
The journey had begun as we set off on an empty M1. Sat on the back seat was the Indian actress, Pooja Bhatt, who had attended the Bite the Mango film festival at the then National Museum of Photography, Film & Television for an on-stage Screentalk interview. She had insisted...
- 3/13/2013
- The Guardian - Film News
“After watching the film, he cried. I have never seen him so emotional. He is a man of very few words and rarely praises any work. He came to me and told me, “I am fine with the length.” That itself was high praise.”
P. K. Nair with Shivendra Singh Dungarpur after the screening of “Celluloid Man” in Mumbai Film Festival
A journey that started with attending Il Cinema Ritrovato (Cinema Rediscovered) festival in Italy came a full circle for Shivendra Singh Dungarpur when his film Celluloid Man premiered at the same festival in 2012. An archivist and Ftii-trained filmmaker, Dungarpur has made a significant contribution to Indian cinema by making a film on the work of P.K. Nair, the man who single-handedly built the national film archive. In an interview with DearCinema, Dungarpur reveals his discoveries and plans about preservation and restoration of Indian films:
How did it occur...
P. K. Nair with Shivendra Singh Dungarpur after the screening of “Celluloid Man” in Mumbai Film Festival
A journey that started with attending Il Cinema Ritrovato (Cinema Rediscovered) festival in Italy came a full circle for Shivendra Singh Dungarpur when his film Celluloid Man premiered at the same festival in 2012. An archivist and Ftii-trained filmmaker, Dungarpur has made a significant contribution to Indian cinema by making a film on the work of P.K. Nair, the man who single-handedly built the national film archive. In an interview with DearCinema, Dungarpur reveals his discoveries and plans about preservation and restoration of Indian films:
How did it occur...
- 12/13/2012
- by Nandita Dutta
- DearCinema.com
India.s big screen will meet the fine print at the capital.s 20th World Book Fair, the biggest carnival of books in the Afro-Asian region, when the 100 years of Indian motion pictures is celebrated with the theme, .Literature and Cinema..The Feb 25-March 4 fair, organised by the National Book Trust (Nbt) every two years, aims to boost the publishing trade, promote reading and create a new segment of readers for both Indian and foreign books..Books and Indian cinema have had a long relationship. We want to pay tribute to the legacy of Indian cinema and the close ties it has shared with literature for the last 100 years at the World Book Fair,. Nbt director M.A. Sikander told Ians.Indian cinema traces its roots to an indigenous .instruction movie., .The Birth of a Pea Plant., a capsule history of the growth of a pea into a pea laden plant by Dada Saheb Phalke.
- 1/7/2012
- Filmicafe
Today 14th March 2011 is a special day for Indian cinema as it marks the 80th anniversary of Alam Ara - the first Indian film to have sound. On this very day in the year 1931, Alam Ara debuted at the Majestic cinema in Mumbai causing such frenzy and stampede among the audience that the police control had to be called for. Alam Ara also featured the first song of Indian cinema -'De De Khuda Ke Naam Par'- sung by actor Wazir Mohammed Khan himself. The film, directed by Ardeshir Irani, is a love story between a prince and a gypsy girl and was based on a Parsi play. The sad part though is that as a result of a fire which took place at National Film Archive of India at Pune in 2003, the last surviving print of Alam Ara was destroyed and the film is no longer available in its original format.
- 3/14/2011
- by Bollywood Hungama News Network
- BollywoodHungama
Today 14th March 2011 is a special day for Indian cinema as it marks the 80th anniversary of Alam Ara - the first Indian film to have sound. On this very day in the year 1931, Alam Ara debuted at the Majestic cinema in Mumbai causing such frenzy and stampede among the audience that the police control had to be called for. Alam Ara also featured the first song of Indian cinema -'De De Khuda Ke Naam Par'- sung by actor Wazir Mohammed Khan himself. The film, directed by Ardeshir Irani, is a love story between a prince and a gypsy girl and was based on a Parsi play. The sad part though is that as a result of a fire which took place at National Film Archive of India at Pune in 2003, the last surviving print of Alam Ara was destroyed and the film is no longer available in its original format.
- 3/14/2011
- by Bollywood Hungama News Network
- BollywoodHungama
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