Cinema in Bengal

To write a history of Bengali Cinema one has to start from the pioneering efforts of Hiralal Sen. The magic of motion picture touched him and he set up his “ Royal Bioscope Company” for importing projectors and camera equipments.

Arguably, Hiralal Sen is the first Indian film maker.The real strides in the show business in Bengal were made by J.F. Madan, a Parsi businessman who realized the commercial possibilities of this new medium.

Starting with makeshift theatres at Kolkata Maidan in 1902, Madan soon built up a chain of cinema halls Then in 1919 his company released the first silent film with Bengali titles named Bilwa-Mongal.

Soon many more production companies stepped in, some of the prominent among the were “Indo-British Film Company” formed by Dhiren Ganguly and Nitish Lahiri and “Aurora Films” by Anadinath Basu.

The major film makers of this period were (1900-1920) Jyotish Banerjee, Priyanath ganguly, Sisir Kumar Bhaduri etc.By the end of ‘20s and early ‘30s the ‘sound’ period In Bengali cinema flowed in with release of the first ‘talking picture’ “Jamai Shasti” on 11th April, 1931 by Madan’s company.

The ‘30s brought an institutional character in film production and the studio-system emerged. ‘East India Film’, ‘New Theatres’, ‘International Film Craft’ at Tollygunge were few of the many studios set up at that time. In mid-thirties, the playback system was first introduced in New Theatres’ “ Bhagya Chakra”.

The ‘40s witnessed the war and famine and the national freedom struggle gathered momentum by this time. This social, political and economical unrest gave birth to a new breed of directors. Among the front liners were Satyajit Ray, who brought in totally a new concept of film making in the world of cinema.

In the ‘50s and ‘60s the pot of popular cinema kept on boiling with full steam as Uttam Kumar-Suchitra Sen pair formed the most romantic and successful pair of all times to come.

The ‘70s and ‘80s were the most happening phase as a new audio-visual medium was explored in the form of Television, 9th August, 1975. It also saw the upsurge of the genre of “off-beat” film makers like, Gautam Ghosh, Buddhadeb Dasgupta, Aparna Sen and Purnendu Pattrea. The state government took some initiative around this time and financed some good films, set up Nandan and Rupayan ( Colour Film laboratory) in 1985 and 1986 respectively.