Cinema of West Bengal
Encyclopedia
The cinema of West Bengal (Bengali
: টলিউড) refers to the Tollygunge
-based Bengali film industry
in Kolkata
, West Bengal
, India
. The origins of the nickname Tollywood, a portmanteau of the words Tollygunge and Hollywood, dates back to 1932. The industry is known for producing many of Indian cinema
's most critically acclaimed Parallel Cinema
art film
s, with several of its filmmakers gaining international acclaim, most notably Satyajit Ray
.
, West Bengal
, is sometimes referred as "Tollywood
", a portmanteau of the words Tollygunge
, a neighbourhood of Calcutta where most of the Bengali film studios are located, and Hollywood. Tollywood was the very first Hollywood-inspired name
, dating back to a 1932 article in the American Cinematographer
by Wilford E. Deming, an American engineer who was involved in the production of the first Indian sound film. He gave the industry the name Tollywood because the Tollygunge district in which it was based rhymed with "Hollywood", and because Tollygunge was the center of the cinema of India
as a whole at the time much like Hollywood was in the cinema of the United States
. Tollywood went on to inspire the name "Bollywood
" (as the Bombay
-based industry overtook the one in Tollygunge), which in turn inspired many other similar names.
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
, 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 Theatre
production of Jamai Shashthi
was the first Bengali talkie. A long history has been traversed since then, with stalwarts such as Satyajit Ray
, Mrinal Sen
and Ritwik Ghatak and others having earned international acclaim and securing their place in the movie history.
is credited as one of Bengal's, and India's first directors. However, these were all silent film
s. Hiralal Sen is also credited as one of the pioneers of advertisement films in India. The first Bengali-language movie was the silent feature Billwamangal
, produced by the Madan Theatre Company of Calcutta and released on 8 November 1919, only six years after the first full-length Indian feature film, Raja Harish Chandra, was released.
The early beginnings of the "talking film" industry go back to the early 1930s, when it came to British India, and to Calcutta. The movies were originally made in Urdu
or Persian
as to accommodate a specific elite market. One of the earliest known studios was the East India Film Company
. The first Bengali film to be made as a talkie was Jamai Shashthi
, released in 1931. It was at this time that the early heroes of the Bengali film industry like Pramathesh Barua
and Debaki Bose
were at the peak of their popularity. Barua also directed a number of movies, exploring new dimension in Indian cinema
. Debaki Bose directed Chandidas in 1932; this film is noted for its breakthrough in recording sound. Sound recordist Mukul Bose found out solution to the problem of spacing out dialogue and frequency modulation.
The contribution of Bengali film industry to Indian film is quite significant. First Bengali talkies Jamai Shashthi
(as short film) was released 11 April 1931 at Crown Cinema Hall in Calcutta and First Bengali talkies as full length feature film Dena Paona
was released 30 December 1931 at Chitra Cinema Hall in Calcutta Based in Tollygunge
, an area of South Kolkata
, West Bengal
and is more elite and artistically inclined than the usual musical
cinema fare in India.
During this period, Bengali cinema enjoyed a large, even disproportionate, representation in Indian cinema
, and produced film directors like Satyajit Ray
, who was an Academy Honorary Award
winner, and the recipient of India's and France's greatest civilian honours, the Bharat Ratna
and Legion of Honor
respectively, and Mrinal Sen
, who is the recipient of the French distinction of Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters
and the Russian Order of Friendship
.
Other prominent film makers in the Bengali film industry at the time included Bimal Roy
and Ritwik Ghatak. The Bengali film industry has produced classics such as Nagarik
(1952), The Apu Trilogy (1955–1959), Jalsaghar
(1958), Ajantrik
(1958), Neel Akasher Neechey
(1959), Devdas
, Devi (1960), Meghe Dhaka Tara
(1960), the Calcutta trilogies
(1971–1976), etc. In particular, The Apu Trilogy is now frequently listed among the greatest films of all time.
The most well known Bengali
actor to date has been Uttam Kumar
; he and co-star Suchitra Sen
were known as The Eternal Pair in the early 1950s. Soumitra Chatterjee
is a notable actor, having acted in several Satyajit Ray
films, and considered as a rival to Uttam Kumar
in the 1960s. He is famous for the characterization of Feluda
in Sonar Kella
(1974) and Joy Baba Felunath (1978), written and directed by Ray. He also played the adult version of Apu in The World of Apu (1959), also directed by Ray. One of the most well known Bengali actresses was Sharmila Tagore
, who debuted in Ray's The World of Apu, and became a major actress in Bengali cinema as well as Bollywood
.
The pioneers in Bengali film music include Raichand Boral
, Pankaj Mullick
and K. C. Dey
, all associated with New Theatres Calcutta
. Other famous playback singers in Bengali film music were Hemanta Mukherjee, Shyamal Mitra
, Manna Dey
, Sandhya Mukhopadhyay
and Kishore Kumar
.
's Pather Panchali (1955) was awarded Best Human Document at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival
, Bengali films frequently appeared in international fora and film festival
s for the next several decades. This allowed Bengali filmmakers to reach a global audience. The most influential among them was Satyajit Ray, whose films became successful among European, American
and Asian audiences. His work subsequently had a worldwide impact, with filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese
, James Ivory
, Abbas Kiarostami
, Elia Kazan
, François Truffaut
, Carlos Saura
, Isao Takahata
, Wes Anderson
and Danny Boyle
being influenced by his cinematic style, and many others such as Akira Kurosawa
praising his work. The "youthful coming-of-age
dramas
that have flooded art houses since the mid-fifties owe a tremendous debt to the Apu trilogy". Kanchenjungha
(1962) introduced a narrative structure that resembles later hyperlink cinema
. Ray's 1967 script for a film to be called The Alien
, which was eventually cancelled, is widely believed to have been the inspiration for Steven Spielberg
's E.T.
(1982). Ira Sachs
' Forty Shades of Blue
(2005) was a loose remake of Charulata
, and in Gregory Nava
's My Family
(1995), the final scene is duplicated from the final scene of The World of Apu. Similar references to Ray films are found in recent works such as Sacred Evil
(2006), the Elements trilogy
of Deepa Mehta
, and in films of Jean-Luc Godard
.
Another prominent Bengali filmmaker is Mrinal Sen
, whose films have been well known for their Marxist
views. During his career, Mrinal Sen's film have received awards from almost all major film festivals, including Cannes
, Berlin, Venice
, Moscow, Karlovy Vary
, Montreal
, Chicago
, and Cairo
. Retrospectives of his films have been shown in almost all major cities of the world.
Another Bengali filmmaker, Ritwik Ghatak, began reaching a global audience long after his death; beginning in the 1990s, a project to restore Ghatak's films was undertaken, and international exhibitions (and subsequent DVD
releases) have belatedly generated an increasingly global audience. Some of his films have strong similarities to later famous international films, such as Ajantrik
(1958) resembling the Herbie
films (1967–2005) and Bari Theke Paliye
(1958) resembling François Truffaut
's The 400 Blows
(1959).
A number of Satyajit Ray films appeared in the Sight & Sound
Critics' Poll of all-time greatest films, including The Apu Trilogy (ranked #4 in 1992 if votes are combined), The Music Room
(ranked #27 in 1992), Charulata
(ranked #41 in 1992) and Days and Nights in the Forest
(ranked #81 in 1982). The 2002 Sight & Sound critics' and directors' poll also included the Ritwik Ghatak films Meghe Dhaka Tara
(ranked #231) and Komal Gandhar (ranked #346). 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). 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). In 2005, The Apu Trilogy was also included in Time magazine's "All-TIME" 100 best movies list. In 1992, the Sight & Sound Critics' Poll ranked Ray at #7 in its list of "Top 10 Directors" of all time,
The cinematographer Subrata Mitra
, who made his debut with 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. Some of the experimental techniques which Satyajit Ray pioneered include photo-negative
flashback
s and X-ray
digression
s while filming Pratidwandi
(1972).
s, along with a decline in the audience and critical appreciation, with notable exceptions of the works of directors like Nripen Saha, Gautam Ghose
. However, even at this time, a number of actors and actresses enjoyed popularity, including Tapas Pal
, Prosenjit
, Chiranjit, Rituparna Sengupta
and others. However, toward the end of the 90s, with the a number of directors coming increasingly into prominence, including Rituparno Ghosh
, Gautam Ghose
, Aparna Sen
, Sandip Ray
among others, a number of popular and critically acclaimed movies have come out of the Bengali film industry in recent years. These include Unishe April
, Titli
, Mr. and Mrs. Iyer
, Patalghar, Bombaiyer Bombete
, Shatru Pakakkha, and Jeeban Jodhha, and signal a resurgence of the Bengali film industry.
The market for Bengali films has expanded to a 340-million-strong Bengali audience in Bangladesh
, West Bengal
, Tripura
and Assam
. The industry could truly flourish if films from this state have a proper distribution network. While around 50 films are produced in West Bengal every year, only 30 make it to the theatres.
, were the successful Prosenjit starrers. Among films not starring Prosenjit, the successful films were Chirodini Tumi Je Amaar, Bhalobasa Bhalobasa
, Love Story
, Mon Maane Naa
, Chirosaathi and Tintorettor Jishu
, again a Feluda adventure from Sandip Ray
. Prosenjit's Mahakaal
did average business Mithun's sole commercial release Satyameva Jayate
was a flop while his off-mainstream release, Buddhadeb Dasgupta
's Kaalpurush
, was taken off the theatres within a fortnight even though tovella, did not go down well with an audience so fond of Swapan Saha
, Sujit Guha
and Haranath Chakraborty
potboilers. Shubrajit Mitra's much-hyped Mon Amour Shesher Kobita Revisited, inspired by a Tagorit script, even the best of actors, singers, music and technical excellence can do nothing to save a film. Arin Paul
's Doshta Dosh told an unusually funny story that failed because it lacked focus. Rati Agnihotri's first Bangla film Aainatey was also a flop as were two new directors’ debuts, Arjun Chakraborty
's Tollylights and Sougata Roy Burman's 90 Hours, a slickly made psychological thriller. Both films directed by the talented cinematographer Riingo, Neel Rajar Deshe
and Love
, were massive flops because despite technical excellence, the films did not have a cohesive script and did not have much to say either.
Chirodini Tumi Je Amaar introduced the new director, Raj Chakraborty
, who honed his skills with television. It also brought in two wonderfully fresh faces with talent to boot in Rahul and Priyanka Sarkar who play the star-crossed lovers in the film. Running neck-to-neck in the race to the biggest hit is Sandip Ray
's Tintorettor Jishu
released in December. Coming a close second are the Koel Mullick-Dev
starrer Mon Maane Naa
and the Koel Mullick-Hiron starrer Chirosaathi. Another big hit was Bhalobasha Bhalobasha
produced by Ashok Dhanuka and directed by Ravi Kinnagi starring Hiron opposite Shrabanti, making a comeback after marriage. Sandip Ray
's Feluda adventure Kailase Kelenkari, Zor
starring Jeet
and Varsha
, Ravi Kinnagi's Premer Kahini
with Dev
and Koel Mullick and Haranath Chakraborty
's Bajimaat
exploring the ugly underbelly of musical reality shows on television, with two new faces Soham
and Subhasree were also thumping hits at the box office. Anjan Dutt's Chalo Let's Go
, a road movie with a lilting musical score, is a big hit claims its producer Joy Ganguly. Rangan Chakrabarty's Bor Ashbe Ekhuni did well but was not a thumping hit. The year's last release, Raaj Kumar
starring Prosenjit, did not do well. West Bengal is known for its parallel cinema.
The biggest star draws were Koel Mullick, Dev
, Priyanka Sarkar, Rahul Banerjee, Hiron, Shoham
and Srabonti. In the music department, Jeet Ganguly is surely going places while as far as direction goes, Raj Chakraborty
has his hands full of assignments he can pick and choose from. Rangan is likely to begin his second film this year and as one finishes this summing up, news trickles in that Bengali cinema will open its innings in 2009 with the release of Aniruddha Roychoudhury's Antaheen
starring Aparna Sen
and Sharmila Tagore
in the same film for the first time with music by Shantanu Moitra
.
2 lakh
to Rs. 1.5 crore
per movie in 2008. India's big house Reliance Big Entertainment and Home Entertainment announced the most expensive Bengali movie will be made with a budget of Rs 3 crore, while other regional movies like the ones in Tamil and Telugu will have a budget of Rs 40 crore as on 2008. For reference: a crore
rupee = 10 million rupees
(roughly 160,000 euro
s), and a lakh
= 100,000 rupees.
Many of the most critically acclaimed Bengali films were low-budget films, including Satyajit Ray
's famous The Apu Trilogy (1955–1959). The first film in the trilogy, Pather Panchali (1955), was produced on a shoestring budget of Rs.
1.5 lakh
($32000) using an amateur cast and crew. All his other films that followed also had low budgets, with his most expensive films being The Adventures Of Goopy And Bagha
(1968) at Rs. 6 lakh ($80,000) and The Chess Players (1977) at Rs. 20 lakh ($230,000).
The Bengali film industry, which had been a beacon for the country's film industry until the 1980s, is in a turnaround mode. At a time when Bollywood continues its roller-coaster ride, there are cheers in the Bengali film industry with several commercial successes. The dark period of the 1990s when Bengali tinsel town was on a steep decline seems like a nightmare that's best forgotten. And, with the money pouring in, producers from other States are now knocking on the doors of Bengali directors.Industry sources say that the best proof of the comeback is seen in the increasing number of cinema houses showing Bengali films. Even a few years ago, of the 800 movie theatres in the State, no more than 350 were showing just Bengali films. The remaining had spread their risk showing a mix of either Hindi and English or Hindi and Bengali films.2008, nearly 700 theatres are showing Bengali films.
The movie, produced by Ramoji Films
at a cost of Rs 65 lakh, recovered its costs within three weeks and is still raking in the moolah for its distributors, producers and theatre owners since last December.The movie has brought back the concept of family entertainment with Sandip Ray's gambit of contemporising the plot paying him rich dividend. Admitting that he did not expect this success, he told Life that he was now lining up another such film for release next year.Earlier, a film by award-winning director Buddhadeb Dasgupta
's Mondo Meyer Upakhyan
(The Tale of a Fallen Girl) produced by Arjoe Entertainments netted nearly Rs 7 crore through sale of overseas rights against a cost of Rs 60 lakh.Haranath Chakraborty
His film Sathi
(Companion) created a record by recouping over five times its production cost, although the film Chokher Bali
, with big names like Aishwariya Rai, Rituparno Ghosh and Tagore, failed to yield expected results. The movie, billed at Rs 1.65 crore (the highest among Bengali films).
Total number of cinema theatre is approx 460.
Loose and unorganised production activities, dominated and dictated by providers of capital led to proliferation of sub-standard films, which were most often commercial failures.The recent successes have come through some concerted effort by Parallel Cinema
which has tapped the domestic market, even while scouting the overseas ones, hitting the festival circuit somewhere in between. As such, celluloid creations of award-winning directors like Gautam Ghosh, Rituparno Ghosh
and Aparna Sen
started bringing money for their producers. However, at around the same time, movies in the commercial circuit (directors like to call them mainstream cinema) also started doing well, supported strongly by the response from the semi-urban areas.The big Bollywood
banners such as Mukta Arts
and Rajshri films are now showing interest in funding Bengali films.
Hollywood houses like Columbia Tristar have made their debut in distributing Bengali movies. According to industry experts, several issues need to be addressed to build on this resurgence and consolidate it.These include inadequate infrastructure, which often compels moviemakers to go outside the State for facilities pushing up costs, poor marketing and distribution and increasing competition from Bangladeshi films. Saregama Films, the entertainment company in the RPG group
, has decided to restrict its budget in film production to about Rs 5 crore and This would be a Rs 4-5-crore budget film.
movement of 1960s was incorporated by director Srijit Mukherji
in his film Baishe Srabon
wherein famous film director Gautam Ghose
portrayed the role of a Hungryalist poet.
Chhabi Biswas
Uttam Kumar
Soumitra Chatterjee
Biswajit Chatterjee
Utpal Dutt
Rabi Ghosh
Victor Banerjee
Shamit Bhanja Ranjit Mallik Dipankar Dey Mithun Chakraborty
Prasenjit Chatterjee
Sabyasachi Chakraborty
Tapas Pal
Anjan Dutta
Jeet
Dev
Jishu Sengupta
Sanjoy Sinharoy
Chhaya Devi
Suchitra Sen
Sharmila Tagore
Madhabi Mukherjee
Supriya Devi
Sandhya Roy
Sabitri Chatterjee
Aparna Sen
Jaya Bhaduri Anjana Bhowmik Mithu Mukherjee Mousumi Chatterjee Mahua Roychowdhury Moonmoon Sen
Debashree Roy
Shatabdi Roy
Rituparna Sengupta
Rachana Banerjee
Koyel Mullick
Konkona Sen Sharma
Raima Sen
Ananya Chatterjee
Swastika Mukherjee
Srabanti Biswas
Payal Sarkar
Subhashree Ganguly
Nusrat Jahan
Nitin Bose
Satyajit Ray
Bimal Roy
Ritwik Ghatak Mrinal Sen
Tapan Sinha
Shakti Samanta
Tarun Majumdar
Hrishikesh Mukherjee
Buddhadev DasguptaAjay Kar Aparna Sen
Hiralal Sen
Basu Bhattacharya
Gautam Ghose
Rituparno Ghosh
Raj Chakraborty
Ravi Kinagi Subrata Sen
Anjan Dutta
Arin Paul
Swapan Saha
Haranath Chakraborty
Anjan Chowdhury Sandip Ray
Sujit Guha
Sujit Mondal
Srijit Mukherji
Sudhin DasguptaHemanta Kumar Mukhopadhyay
Shyamal Mitra
Rahul Dev Burman
Bappi Lahiri
Ajay Das Salil Chowdhury
Jeet Ganguly
The best archive of Bengali film is Bengali film directory
(in English Language
), Published in 1999, Nandan
, West Bengal Film Centre (Calcutta). This directory book was edited by Ansu Sur and was compiled by Abhijit Goswami. It covers almost all released Bengali feature films from 1917 to 1998 with short descriptions including detailed cast and crew, director name, released date and released theater name.
, in Kolkata
, India (sometimes called Tollywood a portmanteau of the words Tollygunge and Hollywood, also known as Tollywood) is one of many centres for Indian regional filmmaking and the other one in Dhaka
, Bangladesh
(sometimes called Dollywood, a portmanteau of the words Dhaka and Hollywood, also known as Dhallywood) is the mainstream national film industry of Bangladesh (see Cinema of Bangladesh
).
Bengali language
Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
: টলিউড) refers to the Tollygunge
Tollygunge
Tollygunge is a locality of South Kolkata. It is flanked by the Eastern Railway south suburban line to the north, Lake Gardens and Golf Green in the east, the Pashchim & Purba Putiaries in the south, and Behala in the west.-History:...
-based Bengali film industry
Bengali cinema
Bengali cinema refers to the Bengali language filmmaking industries in the Bengal region of South Asia. There are two major film-making hubs in the region: one in Kolkata, West Bengal, India and the other in Dhaka, Bangladesh .The history of cinema in Bengal dates back to the 1890s, when the first...
in Kolkata
Kolkata
Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...
, West Bengal
West Bengal
West Bengal is a state in the eastern region of India and is the nation's fourth-most populous. It is also the seventh-most populous sub-national entity in the world, with over 91 million inhabitants. A major agricultural producer, West Bengal is the sixth-largest contributor to India's GDP...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. The origins of the nickname Tollywood, a portmanteau of the words Tollygunge and Hollywood, dates back to 1932. The industry is known for producing many of Indian cinema
Cinema of India
The cinema of India consists of films produced across India, which includes the cinematic culture of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Orissa, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal. Indian films came to be followed throughout South Asia and...
's most critically acclaimed Parallel Cinema
Parallel Cinema
The Indian New Wave, commonly known in India as Art Cinema or Parallel Cinema as an alternative to the mainstream commercial cinema, is a specific movement in Indian cinema, known for its serious content, realism and naturalism, with a keen eye on the sociopolitical climate of the times...
art film
Art film
An art film is the result of filmmaking which is typically a serious, independent film aimed at a niche market rather than a mass market audience...
s, with several of its filmmakers gaining international acclaim, most notably Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray was an Indian Bengali filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema. Ray was born in the city of Kolkata into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature...
.
Etymology
The film industry based in KolkataKolkata
Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...
, West Bengal
West Bengal
West Bengal is a state in the eastern region of India and is the nation's fourth-most populous. It is also the seventh-most populous sub-national entity in the world, with over 91 million inhabitants. A major agricultural producer, West Bengal is the sixth-largest contributor to India's GDP...
, is sometimes referred as "Tollywood
Tollywood
Tollywood may refer to either of the following two Indian film industries:* Cinema of West Bengal, Bengali language film industry based in Tollygunge, southern part of the city of Kolkata in the state of West Bengal, India...
", a portmanteau of the words Tollygunge
Tollygunge
Tollygunge is a locality of South Kolkata. It is flanked by the Eastern Railway south suburban line to the north, Lake Gardens and Golf Green in the east, the Pashchim & Purba Putiaries in the south, and Behala in the west.-History:...
, a neighbourhood of Calcutta where most of the Bengali film studios are located, and Hollywood. Tollywood was the very first Hollywood-inspired name
Hollywood-inspired names
Hollywood is such an iconic name that various other locations associated with the film industry are nicknamed with Hollywood-inspired names. Most starting with the first letter of the location and ending in the letters "-ollywood" or "-wood".-South Asia:...
, dating back to a 1932 article in the American Cinematographer
American Cinematographer
American Cinematographer is a monthly magazine published by the American Society of Cinematographers.American Cinematographer focuses on the art and craft of cinematography, going behind the scenes on domestic and international productions of all shapes and sizes...
by Wilford E. Deming, an American engineer who was involved in the production of the first Indian sound film. He gave the industry the name Tollywood because the Tollygunge district in which it was based rhymed with "Hollywood", and because Tollygunge was the center of the cinema of India
Cinema of India
The cinema of India consists of films produced across India, which includes the cinematic culture of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Orissa, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal. Indian films came to be followed throughout South Asia and...
as a whole at the time much like Hollywood was in the cinema of the United States
Cinema of the United States
The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...
. Tollywood went on to inspire the name "Bollywood
Bollywood
Bollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai , Maharashtra, 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 other production centers producing...
" (as the Bombay
Mumbai
Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...
-based industry overtook the one in Tollygunge), which in turn inspired many other similar names.
History
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
in Bengal
Bengal
Bengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...
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
Hiralal Sen
Hiralal Sen was an Indian photographer generally considered one of India's first filmmakers. He is also credited with creating India's first advertising films and quite possibly India's first political film...
, considered a stalwart of Victorian era
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
cinema when he set up the Royal Bioscope Company
Royal Bioscope Company
The Royal Bioscope Company was the first film production company in Bengal, and possibly the first in India, set up in 1898 by Hiralal Sen, along with Matilal Sen, Deboki Lal Sen, and Bholanath Gupta. The initial productions used an Urban Bioscope bought from Warwick Trading Company in London...
, producing scenes from the stage productions of a number of popular shows at the Star Theatre
Star Theatre, Calcutta
The Star Theatre is a theatre in Kolkata, built in 1883. Initially situated in Beadon Street, the theatre later moved to Cornwallis Street - now called Bidhan Sarani. The Star, along with the Minerva Theatre, was one of the first institutions of commercial Bengali theatre...
, Minerva Theatre
Minerva Theatre, Kolkata
The Minerva Theatre is a theatre in Calcutta, built in 1893. It was erected at the site on Beadon Street where the Great National Theatre stood before. The maiden play held on this stage was 'Macbeth'. It was initially owned by Nagendra Bhusan Mukhopaddhaya. In course of time, it witnessed several...
, Classic Theatre. Following a long gap after Sen's works, Dhirendra Nath Ganguly
Dhirendra Nath Ganguly
Dhirendra Nath Ganguly , better known as Dhiren Ganguly or D.G , was a Dadasaheb Phalke Award winning and Padma Bhushan recipient film enterpreneur/actor/director of Bengali Cinema. He had set up a number of film production companies: Indo British Film company, British Dominion Films, Lotus Film...
(Known as D.G) established Indo British Film Co
Indo British Film Co
The Indo British Film Co was a film production company set up by Dhirendra Nath Ganguly in 1918. It was the first Bengalee owned production company in India. The first production by the company was Bilat Ferat in 1921, directed by N.C. Lahiri.-External links:...
, the first Bengali owned production company, in 1918. However, the first Bengali Feature film, Billwamangal
Billwamangal
Billwamangal is a 1919 Bengali black-and-white silent film by Rustomji Dhotiwala. It is credited as the first Bengali feature film and was released on November 1, 1919 at Comwallis Theatre in Calcutta....
, was produced in 1919, under the banner of Madan Theatre
Madan Theatre
Madan Theatre Company, also known as Madan Theatres Limited or in short, Madan Theatres was a film production company founded by Jamshedji Framji Madan, one of the pioneers of Indian Cinema....
. Bilat Ferat was the IBFC's first production in 1921. The Madan Theatre
Madan Theatre
Madan Theatre Company, also known as Madan Theatres Limited or in short, Madan Theatres was a film production company founded by Jamshedji Framji Madan, one of the pioneers of Indian Cinema....
production of Jamai Shashthi
Jamai Shashthi
Jamai Shashthi is a 1931 Bengali film directed by Amar Choudhury, produced by Madan Theatre Limited. It is a milestone of Bengali cinema as it was the first Bengali talkie. It was released in the same year as Alam Ara, first Indian talkie. Released on 11 April 1931 at Crown Cinema Hall in Calcutta....
was the first Bengali talkie. A long history has been traversed since then, with stalwarts such as Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray was an Indian Bengali filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema. Ray was born in the city of Kolkata into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature...
, Mrinal Sen
Mrinal Sen
Mrinal Sen is a Bengali Indian filmmaker. He was born on 14 May 1923, in the town of Faridpur, now in Bangladesh in a Hindu family. After finishing his high school there, he left home to come to Calcutta as a student and studied physics at the well-known Scottish Church College and at the...
and Ritwik Ghatak and others having earned international acclaim and securing their place in the movie history.
Silent era: 1919-1930
Hiralal SenHiralal Sen
Hiralal Sen was an Indian photographer generally considered one of India's first filmmakers. He is also credited with creating India's first advertising films and quite possibly India's first political film...
is credited as one of Bengal's, and India's first directors. However, these were all silent film
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
s. Hiralal Sen is also credited as one of the pioneers of advertisement films in India. The first Bengali-language movie was the silent feature Billwamangal
Billwamangal
Billwamangal is a 1919 Bengali black-and-white silent film by Rustomji Dhotiwala. It is credited as the first Bengali feature film and was released on November 1, 1919 at Comwallis Theatre in Calcutta....
, produced by the Madan Theatre Company of Calcutta and released on 8 November 1919, only six years after the first full-length Indian feature film, Raja Harish Chandra, was released.
The early beginnings of the "talking film" industry go back to the early 1930s, when it came to British India, and to Calcutta. The movies were originally made in Urdu
Urdu
Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an...
or Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
as to accommodate a specific elite market. One of the earliest known studios was the East India Film Company
East India Film Company
The East India Film Company was the first Indian film company to screen a movie at an International Film Festival. Started in 1932 in Calcutta by R. L...
. The first Bengali film to be made as a talkie was Jamai Shashthi
Jamai Shashthi
Jamai Shashthi is a 1931 Bengali film directed by Amar Choudhury, produced by Madan Theatre Limited. It is a milestone of Bengali cinema as it was the first Bengali talkie. It was released in the same year as Alam Ara, first Indian talkie. Released on 11 April 1931 at Crown Cinema Hall in Calcutta....
, released in 1931. It was at this time that the early heroes of the Bengali film industry like Pramathesh Barua
Pramathesh Barua
Pramathesh Chandra Barua was a famous actor, director, and screenwriter of Indian films in the pre-independence era.-Early life:...
and Debaki Bose
Debaki Bose
Debaki Bose , also known as Debaki Kumar Bose, was a top director, writer, actor of Bengali cinema/Indian cinema. He was born on 25 November 1898 in Akalpoush, Burdwan, Bengal, British India. He died on 17 November 1971 in Calcutta, West Bengal, India. He is known for his innovative use of sound...
were at the peak of their popularity. Barua also directed a number of movies, exploring new dimension in Indian cinema
Cinema of India
The cinema of India consists of films produced across India, which includes the cinematic culture of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Orissa, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal. Indian films came to be followed throughout South Asia and...
. Debaki Bose directed Chandidas in 1932; this film is noted for its breakthrough in recording sound. Sound recordist Mukul Bose found out solution to the problem of spacing out dialogue and frequency modulation.
Rise of the Talkie: 1931-1947
Jamai Shashthi
Jamai Shashthi is a 1931 Bengali film directed by Amar Choudhury, produced by Madan Theatre Limited. It is a milestone of Bengali cinema as it was the first Bengali talkie. It was released in the same year as Alam Ara, first Indian talkie. Released on 11 April 1931 at Crown Cinema Hall in Calcutta....
(as short film) was released 11 April 1931 at Crown Cinema Hall in Calcutta and First Bengali talkies as full length feature film Dena Paona
Dena Paona (film)
Dena Paona is a 1931 Bengali film directed by Premankur Atorthy, starring Amar Mullick, Durga Das Bannerjee, Jahar Ganguly, Nibhanani Devi and Bhanu Bandyopadhyay. Based on a novel by Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay and produced by New Theatres, it is credited as the one of first Bengali...
was released 30 December 1931 at Chitra Cinema Hall in Calcutta Based in Tollygunge
Tollygunge
Tollygunge is a locality of South Kolkata. It is flanked by the Eastern Railway south suburban line to the north, Lake Gardens and Golf Green in the east, the Pashchim & Purba Putiaries in the south, and Behala in the west.-History:...
, an area of South Kolkata
Kolkata
Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...
, West Bengal
West Bengal
West Bengal is a state in the eastern region of India and is the nation's fourth-most populous. It is also the seventh-most populous sub-national entity in the world, with over 91 million inhabitants. A major agricultural producer, West Bengal is the sixth-largest contributor to India's GDP...
and is more elite and artistically inclined than the usual musical
Musical film
The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate...
cinema fare in India.
Golden era: 1952-1975
Cinema of India
The cinema of India consists of films produced across India, which includes the cinematic culture of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Orissa, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal. Indian films came to be followed throughout South Asia and...
, and produced film directors like Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray was an Indian Bengali filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema. Ray was born in the city of Kolkata into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature...
, who was an Academy Honorary Award
Academy Honorary Award
The Academy Honorary Award, instituted in 1948 for the 21st Academy Awards , is given by the discretion of the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to celebrate motion picture achievements that are not covered by existing Academy Awards, although prior winners of...
winner, and the recipient of India's and France's greatest civilian honours, the Bharat Ratna
Bharat Ratna
Bharat Ratna is the Republic of India's highest civilian award, awarded for the highest degrees of national service. This service includes artistic, literary, and scientific achievements, as well as "recognition of public service of the highest order." Unlike knights, holders of the Bharat Ratna...
and Legion of Honor
Légion d'honneur
The Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...
respectively, and Mrinal Sen
Mrinal Sen
Mrinal Sen is a Bengali Indian filmmaker. He was born on 14 May 1923, in the town of Faridpur, now in Bangladesh in a Hindu family. After finishing his high school there, he left home to come to Calcutta as a student and studied physics at the well-known Scottish Church College and at the...
, who is the recipient of the French distinction of Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters
Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
The Ordre des Arts et des Lettres is an Order of France, established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture, and confirmed as part of the Ordre national du Mérite by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963...
and the Russian Order of Friendship
Order of Friendship
The Order of Friendship is a state decoration of Russia established by decree # 442 of March 2, 1994 of the President of the Russian Federation....
.
Other prominent film makers in the Bengali film industry at the time included Bimal Roy
Bimal Roy
Bimal Roy was one of the most acclaimed Indian film directors of all time. He is particularly noted for his realistic and socialistic films like Do Bigha Zamin, Parineeta, Biraj Bahu, Madhumati, Sujata, and Bandini, making him an important director of Hindi cinema...
and Ritwik Ghatak. The Bengali film industry has produced classics such as Nagarik
Nagarik
Nagarik ,also spelled as Nagorik, The Citizen in English, was the first feature-length film directed by Indian director Ritwik Ghatak. Completed in 1952, it preceded Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali as perhaps, the first example of an art film in Bengali cinema, but is deprived of that honor, since...
(1952), The Apu Trilogy (1955–1959), Jalsaghar
Jalsaghar
Jalsaghar is the fourth feature film directed by Satyajit Ray. Jalsaghar is a narration of the end days of a Zamindar in Bengal. The landlord, Roy , is a just but other-worldly man who loves to spend time listening to music and putting up spectacles rather than managing his fields ravaged by...
(1958), Ajantrik
Ajantrik
Ajantrik is a 1958 Indian Bengali film written and directed by parallel filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak...
(1958), Neel Akasher Neechey
Neel Akasher Neechey
Neel Akasher Neechey is a 1959 Bengali language film directed by Mrinal Sen, starring Kali Bannerjee, Manju Dey, Bikash Roy and others....
(1959), Devdas
Devdas
Devdas is a Bengali Romance novel by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay. Essentially, it is a retelling of the Krishna, Radha, and Meera myths, the relationships between its three protagonists - Devdas, Parvati, and Chandramukhi - paralleling the Hindu deities'.-Plot summary:Devdas is a young man from...
, Devi (1960), Meghe Dhaka Tara
Meghe Dhaka Tara
Meghe Dhaka Tara is a 1960 film by written and director Ritwik Ghatak, based on a novel Shaktipada Rajguru. It stars Supriya Choudhury, Anil Chatterjee, Gita Dey, Bijan Bhattacharya, Niranjan Roy, and Gyanesh Mukherjee...
(1960), the Calcutta trilogies
Calcutta trilogy
The Calcutta trilogy may refer to either of the following two Bengali film trilogies:Three films by Satyajit Ray:* Pratidwandi * Seemabaddha * Jana Aranya...
(1971–1976), etc. In particular, The Apu Trilogy is now frequently listed among the greatest films of all time.
The most well known Bengali
Bengali people
The Bengali people are an ethnic community native to the historic region of Bengal in South Asia. They speak Bengali , which is an Indo-Aryan language of the eastern Indian subcontinent, evolved from the Magadhi Prakrit and Sanskrit languages. In their native language, they are referred to as বাঙালী...
actor to date has been Uttam Kumar
Uttam Kumar
Uttam Kumar is one of the most famous names of Indian Bengali Cinema.Born Arun Kumar Chatterjee in 1926 at Ahiritola, North Calcutta he is widely known as Uttam Kumar and Mahanayak . He remains as much of a cultural icon as he had been in his lifetime...
; he and co-star Suchitra Sen
Suchitra Sen
Suchitra Sen ; or Rama Dasgupta , is an Indian actress who acted in several Bengali films. In particular, the movies in which she paired opposite another legend in Bengali films, Uttam Kumar, became classics in the history of Bengali cinema. She now lives a life of a recluse rarely making any...
were known as The Eternal Pair in the early 1950s. Soumitra Chatterjee
Soumitra Chatterjee
Soumitra Chatterjee or Soumitra Chattopadhyay is an iconic Bengali actor from India, known among other things for his frequent collaborations with the great Bengali film director Satyajit Ray and his constant comparison with the Bengali screen idol Uttam Kumar.-Background:Soumitra graduated from...
is a notable actor, having acted in several Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray was an Indian Bengali filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema. Ray was born in the city of Kolkata into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature...
films, and considered as a rival to Uttam Kumar
Uttam Kumar
Uttam Kumar is one of the most famous names of Indian Bengali Cinema.Born Arun Kumar Chatterjee in 1926 at Ahiritola, North Calcutta he is widely known as Uttam Kumar and Mahanayak . He remains as much of a cultural icon as he had been in his lifetime...
in the 1960s. He is famous for the characterization of Feluda
Feluda
Feluda, or Prodosh Chandra Mitra, who uses the anglicised name Pradosh C. Mitter, is a fictional private investigator starring in a series of Bengali novels and short stories written by the famous Indian Bengali film director and writer Satyajit Ray. The detective lives at Rajani Sen Road,...
in Sonar Kella
Sonar Kella
Sonar Kella , also Shonar Kella, released in the United States as The Golden Fortress, is a 1971 mystery novel and a 1974 film by Bengali writer and director Satyajit Ray. The film is an adaptation of the novel with minor plot changes and features the actors Soumitra Chatterjee, Santosh Dutta,...
(1974) and Joy Baba Felunath (1978), written and directed by Ray. He also played the adult version of Apu in The World of Apu (1959), also directed by Ray. One of the most well known Bengali actresses was Sharmila Tagore
Sharmila Tagore
Sharmila Tagore is an Indian film actress. She has won National Film Awards and Filmfare Awards for her performances.She has led the Indian Film Censor Board from October 2004 till March 2011...
, who debuted in Ray's The World of Apu, and became a major actress in Bengali cinema as well as Bollywood
Bollywood
Bollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai , Maharashtra, 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 other production centers producing...
.
The pioneers in Bengali film music include Raichand Boral
Raichand Boral
Rai Chand Boral was an Indian composer, considered by music conoisseurs to be the father of Bollywood film music.-Life and career:...
, Pankaj Mullick
Pankaj Mullick
Pankaj Mullick, also known as Pankaj Kumar Mullick was a Bengali Indian music director, who was a pioneer of film music in Bengali cinema and Hindi cinema at the advent of playback singing, as well as an early exponent of Rabindra Sangeet.He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1970, followed by the...
and K. C. Dey
K. C. Dey
Krishna Chandra De better known as K.C. Dey, was a Bengali actor, singer and music composer and teacher born in Calcutta . He was S.D. Burman's first musical teacher and mentor. He worked for New Theatres in Kolkata until 1940. He is best remembered for his Kirtan songs.Dey sang and composed...
, all associated with New Theatres Calcutta
New Theatres Calcutta
New Theatres, Calcutta was formed by producer B. N. Sircar . It was formed on 10 February 1931.Moto - Jivatang Jyotiretu Chhayam...
. Other famous playback singers in Bengali film music were Hemanta Mukherjee, Shyamal Mitra
Shyamal Mitra
Shyamal Mitra was one of the best known singers of Bengal in the 1950s to 70s. Along with Hemanta Mukherjee and Manna Dey he was the most notable singer of that period. With a good baritone his voice reflected a range of emotions...
, Manna Dey
Manna Dey
Prabodh Chandra Dey , better known by his nickname Manna Dey , is a playback singer in Bengali Assamese and Hindi films. Along with Mohammed Rafi, Kishore Kumar, Mukesh, he was a part of Indian film playback music from the 1950s to the 1970s. He has recorded more than 3500 songs over the course of...
, Sandhya Mukhopadhyay
Sandhya Mukhopadhyay
Sandhya Mukhopadhyay is an Indian singer and musician, specialising in Bengali music. She was born in Kolkata, India. She is also known as Sandhya Mukherjee.She was very close friends with the late Alpana Banerjee...
and Kishore Kumar
Kishore Kumar
Kishore Kumar , born Abhas Kumar Ganguly, was an Indian film playback singer and an actor who also worked as lyricist, composer, producer, director, screenwriter and scriptwriter.Kishore Kumar was one of India's greatest performers of the late 20th century...
.
Global influence
Ever since Satyajit RaySatyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray was an Indian Bengali filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema. Ray was born in the city of Kolkata into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature...
's Pather Panchali (1955) was awarded Best Human Document at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival
1956 Cannes Film Festival
-Jury:*Maurice Lehmann *Arletty *Louise de Vilmorin *Jacques-Pierre Frogerais *Henri Jeanson *Domenico Meccoli *Otto Preminger *James Quinn *Roger Regent *María Romero...
, Bengali films frequently appeared in international fora and film festival
Film festival
A film festival is an organised, extended presentation of films in one or more movie theaters or screening venues, usually in a single locality. More and more often film festivals show part of their films to the public by adding outdoor movie screenings...
s for the next several decades. This allowed Bengali filmmakers to reach a global audience. The most influential among them was Satyajit Ray, whose films became successful among European, American
Americas
The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...
and Asian audiences. His work subsequently had a worldwide impact, with filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
, James Ivory
James Ivory (director)
James Francis Ivory is an American film director, best known for the results of his long collaboration with Merchant Ivory Productions, which included both Indian-born film producer Ismail Merchant, and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala...
, Abbas Kiarostami
Abbas Kiarostami
Abbas Kiarostami is an internationally acclaimed Iranian film director, screenwriter, photographer and film producer. An active filmmaker since 1970, Kiarostami has been involved in over forty films, including shorts and documentaries...
, Elia Kazan
Elia Kazan
Elia Kazan was an American director and actor, described by the New York Times as "one of the most honored and influential directors in Broadway and Hollywood history". Born in Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, to Greek parents originally from Kayseri in Anatolia, the family emigrated...
, François Truffaut
François Truffaut
François Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
, Carlos Saura
Carlos Saura
Carlos Saura Atarés is a Spanish film director and photographer.-Early life:Born into a family of artists , he developed his artistic sense in childhood as a photography enthusiast.He obtained his directing diploma in Madrid in 1957 at the Institute of Cinema Research and Studies...
, Isao Takahata
Isao Takahata
is a Japanese anime filmmaker that have earned critical international acclaim for his work as a director. Takahata is co-founder of Studio Ghibli with long-time collaborative partner Hayao Miyazaki. He has directed films such as the war-themed Grave of the Fireflies, the romantic-drama Only...
, Wes Anderson
Wes Anderson
Wesley Wales Anderson is an American film director, screenwriter, actor, and producer of features, short films and commercials....
and Danny Boyle
Danny Boyle
Daniel "Danny" Boyle is an English filmmaker and producer. He is best known for his work on films such as Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, 28 Days Later, Sunshine and Trainspotting. For Slumdog Millionaire, Boyle won numerous awards in 2008, including the Academy Award for Best Director...
being influenced by his cinematic style, and many others such as Akira Kurosawa
Akira Kurosawa
was a Japanese film director, producer, screenwriter and editor. Regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema, Kurosawa directed 30 filmsIn 1946, Kurosawa co-directed, with Hideo Sekigawa and Kajiro Yamamoto, the feature Those Who Make Tomorrow ;...
praising his work. The "youthful coming-of-age
Coming of age
Coming of age is a young person's transition from childhood to adulthood. The age at which this transition takes place varies in society, as does the nature of the transition. It can be a simple legal convention or can be part of a ritual, as practiced by many societies...
dramas
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
that have flooded art houses since the mid-fifties owe a tremendous debt to the Apu trilogy". Kanchenjungha
Kanchenjungha
Kanchenjungha is a 1962 Bengali film by Bengali film director Satyajit Ray. It was Ray's first original screenplay and his first colour film....
(1962) introduced a narrative structure that resembles later hyperlink cinema
Hyperlink cinema
Hyperlink cinema is a term coined by author Alissa Quart, who used the term in her review of the film Happy Endings for the film journal Film Comment in 2005. Film critic Roger Ebert popularized the term when reviewing the film Syriana in 2005...
. Ray's 1967 script for a film to be called The Alien
The Alien
The Alien was an Indian-American science fiction film under production in the late 1960s which was eventually cancelled. It was being directed by the celebrated Indian director Satyajit Ray and co-produced by Hollywood studio Columbia Pictures. The script was written by Ray in 1967, loosely based...
, which was eventually cancelled, is widely believed to have been the inspiration for Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
's E.T.
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is a 1982 American science fiction film co-produced and directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Melissa Mathison and starring Henry Thomas, Dee Wallace, Robert MacNaughton, Drew Barrymore, and Peter Coyote...
(1982). Ira Sachs
Ira Sachs
Ira Sachs is an American filmmaker. His first film was the acclaimed short Lady .He directed Sundance Film Festival selection The Delta and directed Sundance Film Festival Grand Prize winning Forty Shades of Blue...
' Forty Shades of Blue
Forty Shades of Blue
Forty Shades of Blue is a 2005 independent film directed by Ira Sachs. It tells the story of Alan James , an aging music producer who lives in Memphis, Tennessee with his much younger Russian girlfriend, Laura . Their life together is complicated by the presence of Alan's adult son Michael Forty...
(2005) was a loose remake of Charulata
Charulata
Charulata is a 1964 film by Bengali director Satyajit Ray, based upon the novella Nastanirh by Rabindranath Tagore...
, and in Gregory Nava
Gregory Nava
Gregory Nava is a film director, producer and screenplay writer, of Mexican and Basque heritage.-Education:...
's My Family
My Family (film)
My Family is an American drama film directed by Gregory Nava and written by Nava and Anna Thomas. The motion picture stars Jimmy Smits, Edward James Olmos, Esai Morales, and others. It also features Jennifer Lopez in her second film role....
(1995), the final scene is duplicated from the final scene of The World of Apu. Similar references to Ray films are found in recent works such as Sacred Evil
Sacred Evil
Sacred Evil is an Indian supernatural/surreal film directed by Abhigyan Jha and Abhiyan Rajhans. It was released in 2006.Sacred Evil is about duality. It explores the premise that reality always has two sides...
(2006), the Elements trilogy
Elements trilogy
The Elements trilogy is a trilogy of films by Indian film-maker Deepa Mehta, dealing with controversial issues of social reform on the Indian subcontinent. Fire, the first release in 1996, dealt with issues of arranged marriage and homosexuality in the patriarchal culture of India...
of Deepa Mehta
Deepa Mehta
Deepa Mehta, LLD is a Genie Award-winning Indian-born Canadian film director and screenwriter, most known for her Elements Trilogy, Fire , Earth , and Water , among which Earth was submitted by Indian government for Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film...
, and in films of Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....
.
Another prominent Bengali filmmaker is Mrinal Sen
Mrinal Sen
Mrinal Sen is a Bengali Indian filmmaker. He was born on 14 May 1923, in the town of Faridpur, now in Bangladesh in a Hindu family. After finishing his high school there, he left home to come to Calcutta as a student and studied physics at the well-known Scottish Church College and at the...
, whose films have been well known for their Marxist
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
views. During his career, Mrinal Sen's film have received awards from almost all major film festivals, including Cannes
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
, Berlin, Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
, Moscow, Karlovy Vary
Karlovy Vary
Karlovy Vary is a spa city situated in western Bohemia, Czech Republic, on the confluence of the rivers Ohře and Teplá, approximately west of Prague . It is named after King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, who founded the city in 1370...
, Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
, Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, and Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
. Retrospectives of his films have been shown in almost all major cities of the world.
Another Bengali filmmaker, Ritwik Ghatak, began reaching a global audience long after his death; beginning in the 1990s, a project to restore Ghatak's films was undertaken, and international exhibitions (and subsequent DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
releases) have belatedly generated an increasingly global audience. Some of his films have strong similarities to later famous international films, such as Ajantrik
Ajantrik
Ajantrik is a 1958 Indian Bengali film written and directed by parallel filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak...
(1958) resembling the Herbie
Herbie
Herbie is an anthropomorphic Volkswagen Beetle, a character that is featured in several Disney motion pictures starting with the 1968 feature film The Love Bug. He has a mind of his own and is capable of driving himself, and is a serious contender in auto racing competitions...
films (1967–2005) and Bari Theke Paliye
Bari Theke Paliye
Bari Theke Paliye is a 1958 Bengali film by director Ritwik Ghatak. It stars Supriya Choudhury, Anil Chatterjee, Gita Ghatak, Bijan Bhattacharya, Niranjan Roy, and Gyanesh Mukherjee....
(1958) resembling François Truffaut
François Truffaut
François Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
's The 400 Blows
The 400 Blows
The 400 Blows is a 1959 French film directed by François Truffaut. One of the defining films of the French New Wave, it displays many of the characteristic traits of the movement. The story revolves around Antoine Doinel, an ordinary adolescent in Paris, who is thought by his parents and teachers...
(1959).
A number of Satyajit Ray films appeared in the Sight & Sound
Sight & Sound
Sight & Sound is a British monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute .Sight & Sound was first published in 1932 and in 1934 management of the magazine was handed to the nascent BFI, which still publishes the magazine today...
Critics' Poll of all-time greatest films, including The Apu Trilogy (ranked #4 in 1992 if votes are combined), The Music Room
Jalsaghar
Jalsaghar is the fourth feature film directed by Satyajit Ray. Jalsaghar is a narration of the end days of a Zamindar in Bengal. The landlord, Roy , is a just but other-worldly man who loves to spend time listening to music and putting up spectacles rather than managing his fields ravaged by...
(ranked #27 in 1992), Charulata
Charulata
Charulata is a 1964 film by Bengali director Satyajit Ray, based upon the novella Nastanirh by Rabindranath Tagore...
(ranked #41 in 1992) and Days and Nights in the Forest
Aranyer Din Ratri
Aranyer Din Ratri , is an Indian Bengali film released in 1970 and directed by Satyajit Ray. It is based upon the Bengali novel of the same name by Sunil Gangopadhyay. It was one of the earliest films to employ the literary technique of the carnivalesque...
(ranked #81 in 1982). The 2002 Sight & Sound critics' and directors' poll also included the Ritwik Ghatak films Meghe Dhaka Tara
Meghe Dhaka Tara
Meghe Dhaka Tara is a 1960 film by written and director Ritwik Ghatak, based on a novel Shaktipada Rajguru. It stars Supriya Choudhury, Anil Chatterjee, Gita Dey, Bijan Bhattacharya, Niranjan Roy, and Gyanesh Mukherjee...
(ranked #231) and Komal Gandhar (ranked #346). In 1998, the critics' poll conducted by the Asian film
Asian cinema
Asian cinema refers to the film industries and films produced in the continent of Asia, and is also sometimes known as Eastern cinema. More commonly however, it is used to refer to the cinema of Eastern, Southeastern and Southern Asia. West Asian cinema is sometimes classified as part of Middle...
magazine Cinemaya
Cinemaya
Cinemaya is an influential film magazine established in 1988 devoted exclusively to coverage of Asian film. It is published in New Delhi, India and distributed internationally. The present editor-in-chief of Cinemaya is Aruna Vasudev, noted film journalist...
included The Apu Trilogy (ranked #1 if votes are combined), Ray's Charulata
Charulata
Charulata is a 1964 film by Bengali director Satyajit Ray, based upon the novella Nastanirh by Rabindranath Tagore...
and The Music Room
Jalsaghar
Jalsaghar is the fourth feature film directed by Satyajit Ray. Jalsaghar is a narration of the end days of a Zamindar in Bengal. The landlord, Roy , is a just but other-worldly man who loves to spend time listening to music and putting up spectacles rather than managing his fields ravaged by...
(both tied at #11), and Ghatak's Subarnarekha
Subarnarekha (film)
Subarnarekha is an Indian Bengali film directed by Ritwik Ghatak. It was produced in 1962 but was not released until 1965. It was part of the trilogy, Meghe Dhaka Tara , Komal Gandhar , and Subarnarekha , all dealing with the aftermath of the Partition of India in 1947 and the refugees coping with...
(also tied at #11). In 1999, The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
top 250 "Best Film of the Century" critics' poll also included The Apu Trilogy (ranked #5 if votes are combined). In 2005, The Apu Trilogy was also included in Time magazine's "All-TIME" 100 best movies list. In 1992, the Sight & Sound Critics' Poll ranked Ray at #7 in its list of "Top 10 Directors" of all time,
The cinematographer Subrata Mitra
Subrata Mitra
Subrata Mitra was an Indian cinematographer. Acclaimed for his work in The Apu Trilogy , Mitra is often considered one of the greatest of Indian cinematographers....
, who made his debut with Ray's The Apu Trilogy, also had an importance influence on cinematography
Cinematography
Cinematography is the making of lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for cinema. It is closely related to the art of still photography...
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
Aparajito
Aparajito is a 1956 Bengali film directed by Satyajit Ray, and is the second part of The Apu Trilogy. It is adapted from the last one-fifth of Bibhutibhushan Bannerjee's novel Pather Panchali and the first one-third of its sequel Aparajito. It focuses on the life of Apu from childhood to college...
(1956), the second part of The Apu Trilogy. Some of the experimental techniques which Satyajit Ray pioneered include photo-negative
Negative (photography)
In photography, a negative may refer to three different things, although they are all related.-A negative:Film for 35 mm cameras comes in long narrow strips of chemical-coated plastic or cellulose acetate. As each image is captured by the camera onto the film strip, the film strip advances so that...
flashback
Flashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
s and X-ray
X-ray
X-radiation is a form of electromagnetic radiation. X-rays have a wavelength in the range of 0.01 to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 petahertz to 30 exahertz and energies in the range 120 eV to 120 keV. They are shorter in wavelength than UV rays and longer than gamma...
digression
Digression
Digression is a section of a composition or speech that is an intentional change of subject. In Classical rhetoric since Corax of Syracuse, especially in Institutio Oratoria of Quintilian, the digression was a regular part of any oration or composition...
s while filming Pratidwandi
Pratidwandi
Pratidwandi or Pratidandi is a 1971 Indian Bengali film directed by Satyajit Ray based on the novel by Sunil Gangopadhyay. It is the first part of the Calcutta trilogy...
(1972).
1980s
In the 1980s, however, the Bengal film industry went through a period of turmoil, with a shift from its traditional artistic and emotional inclinations to an approach more imitating the increasingly more popular Hindi filmBollywood
Bollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai , Maharashtra, 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 other production centers producing...
s, along with a decline in the audience and critical appreciation, with notable exceptions of the works of directors like Nripen Saha, Gautam Ghose
Gautam Ghose
Goutam Ghose is one of the most acclaimed film directors of modern India. Born in Calcutta. Graduated from Calcutta University....
. However, even at this time, a number of actors and actresses enjoyed popularity, including Tapas Pal
Tapas Pal
Tapas Pal born in 1960 in a remote village in Jalpaiguri district is a Bengali actor from Calcutta, the son of Dr. Ganash Pal of Chandannagar. He is a Member of Parliament having won in the 2009 Indian General Eelections on a Trinamool Congress ticket from Krishnanagar . His mother hails from a...
, Prosenjit
Prasenjit Chatterjee
Prosenjit Chatterjee Prosenjit Chatterjee Prosenjit Chatterjee (also Prosenjit Chatterjee or Proshenjit Chattopadhyay , professionally known as Proshenjit, is a Bengali film actor. His fans affectionately called him Bumba Da...
, Chiranjit, Rituparna Sengupta
Rituparna Sengupta
Rituparna Sengupta is an Indian actress. She is the leading actress in Bengali Cinema for the last decade in India, and is also currently performing in critically acclaimed Hindi Cinema.- Early life and education :...
and others. However, toward the end of the 90s, with the a number of directors coming increasingly into prominence, including Rituparno Ghosh
Rituparno Ghosh
Rituparno Ghosh is a Bengali film director. He has won 8 National Film Awards in India and several awards at international film festivals abroad.- Early life and background :...
, Gautam Ghose
Gautam Ghose
Goutam Ghose is one of the most acclaimed film directors of modern India. Born in Calcutta. Graduated from Calcutta University....
, Aparna Sen
Aparna Sen
Aparna Sen is a critically acclaimed Bengali Indian filmmaker, script writer, and actress. She is the winner of three National Film Awards and eight international film festival awards.-Biography:...
, Sandip Ray
Sandip Ray
Sandip Ray is a film director living in the city of Kolkata, West Bengal, India. He is the only son of the noted Bengali director Satyajit Ray, and Bijoya Ray.-Career:...
among others, a number of popular and critically acclaimed movies have come out of the Bengali film industry in recent years. These include Unishe April
Unishe April
Unishe April is an award-winning feature film directed by Rituparno Ghosh. The film is in Bengali. It stars Aparna Sen, Debashree Roy, Prosenjit Chatterjee and Dipankar Dey. The film's music is composed by Jyotishka Dasgupta. It won two National Film Awards in 1995, including the Golden Lotus...
, Titli
Titli
Titli is a 2002 Bengali film by Rituporno Ghosh, starring Konkona Sen Sharma, Aparna Sen, Mithun Chakraborty....
, Mr. and Mrs. Iyer
Mr. and Mrs. Iyer
Mr. and Mrs. Iyer is a 2002 Indian drama film written and directed by Aparna Sen and produced by N. Venkatesan. The film features Aparna Sen's daughter Konkona Sen Sharma as Meenakshi Iyer, a Tamil Iyer Brahmin who is a Hindu. Rahul Bose portrays the character of Raja Chowdhury, a Muslim wildlife...
, Patalghar, Bombaiyer Bombete
Bombaiyer Bombete
Bombaiyer Bombete is a thriller film directed by Sandip Ray based on the story of the same name by Satyajit Ray.-Plot:Lalmohan Ganguly, alias Jatayu - a sidekick of Feluda - gets invited to Mumbai to watch the shooting of a film based on a novel written by him...
, Shatru Pakakkha, and Jeeban Jodhha, and signal a resurgence of the Bengali film industry.
2000s
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
, West Bengal
West Bengal
West Bengal is a state in the eastern region of India and is the nation's fourth-most populous. It is also the seventh-most populous sub-national entity in the world, with over 91 million inhabitants. A major agricultural producer, West Bengal is the sixth-largest contributor to India's GDP...
, Tripura
Tripura
Tripura is a state in North-East India, with an area of . It is the third smallest state of India, according to area. Tripura is surrounded by Bangladesh on the north, south, and west. The Indian states of Assam and Mizoram lie to the east. The capital is Agartala and the main languages spoken are...
and Assam
Assam
Assam , also, rarely, Assam Valley and formerly the Assam Province , is a northeastern state of India and is one of the most culturally and geographically distinct regions of the country...
. The industry could truly flourish if films from this state have a proper distribution network. While around 50 films are produced in West Bengal every year, only 30 make it to the theatres.
2008
Bengali cinema has never seen such a flood of releases within one year as it did in 2008. The year marks a record for new talents, new directors, young producers, a new genre of ensemble films, a few off-beat films, a few films for children, an animation film and films in languages other than Bengali but having a distinct Bengali atmosphere. This, alongside ten releases of Prosenjit, the numero uno, among the 61 releases we saw last year and some experimental films new directors stepped in with. The predominantly young audience reveals a marked preference for fast-paced romance-cum-action films featuring strapping young actors instead of the seniors Mithun and Prosenjit. Shibaji, Ghar Jamai, Mr. Fantoosh, and TakkarTakkar
Takkar is a village and union council of Mardan District in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. It is located at 34°17′18N 71°53′50E and has an altitude of ....
, were the successful Prosenjit starrers. Among films not starring Prosenjit, the successful films were Chirodini Tumi Je Amaar, Bhalobasa Bhalobasa
Bhalobasa Bhalobasa (2008 film)
Bhalobasa Bhalobasa is a Bengali film by Rabi Kinagi.This movie is the second film of both Hiran Chatterjee and Srabanti Malakar.Hiran Chatterjee's first film was Nabab Nandini opposite of Koyel Mullick in 2007 and Srabanti Malakar's first film was Champion opposite of Jeet in 2003.After...
, Love Story
Love Story (2008 Bengali film)
Love Story is a Bengali Movie was released in 2008,directed by Raj Mukherjee, the movie featured Angsuman Parashar, Barsha Priyadarshini.-Plot:...
, Mon Maane Naa
Mon Mane Na (2008 film)
Mon Mane Na is a Bengali romance Movie was released in 2008,directed by Sujit Guha, the movie featured Dev, Koyel Mullick. This movie is adopted from the 1995 American romantic comedy movie French Kiss.-Plot:...
, Chirosaathi and Tintorettor Jishu
Tintorettor Jishu
Tintorettor Jishu is a mystery novel by Satyajit Ray about an adventure of Feluda. A movie directed by Sandip Ray has been made based on the story . An extensive shoot schedule at Hong Kong during May 2008 takes Feluda movies to a new height...
, again a Feluda adventure from Sandip Ray
Sandip Ray
Sandip Ray is a film director living in the city of Kolkata, West Bengal, India. He is the only son of the noted Bengali director Satyajit Ray, and Bijoya Ray.-Career:...
. Prosenjit's Mahakaal
Mahakaal
Mahakaal is a 1993 Indian Horror film. It is directed by Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay. It is based on the American horror film franchise A Nightmare on Elm Street...
did average business Mithun's sole commercial release Satyameva Jayate
Satyameva Jayate
"Satyameva Jayate" is a Hindu mantra from the ancient scripture Mundaka Upanishad. Upon independence of India, it was adopted as the national motto of India. It is inscribed in Devanagari script at the base of the national emblem. The emblem and words 'Satyameva Jayate' are inscribed on one side...
was a flop while his off-mainstream release, Buddhadeb Dasgupta
Buddhadeb Dasgupta
Buddhadeb Dasgupta is a poet and prominent contemporary Indian filmmaker, most known for films like Bagh Bahadur, Tahader Katha, Charachar and Uttara...
's Kaalpurush
Kaalpurush
Kaalpurush or Kalpurush is a 2008 Indian Bengali drama film directed and written by Buddhadev Dasgupta. The film stars Mithun Chakraborty and Rahul Bose in lead roles....
, was taken off the theatres within a fortnight even though tovella, did not go down well with an audience so fond of Swapan Saha
Swapan Saha
Swapan Saha is a noted Indian film director.-His speciality:With the air of somebody who has achieved the impossible Swapan Saha says, "I've just completed Sat Bhai . It took 10 days, cost Rs 11 lakh and was shot within 100 hours." For Saha, this is about par...
, Sujit Guha
Sujit Guha
Sujit Guha ) is a Bengali film diector and scriptwriter.-Director:* Mon Maane Naa 2008* Sangharsha 2007* Eri Naam Prem 2006* Nayak 2006* Agnipath 2005* Deba 2002* Tak Misti Jiban 2002* Prem Pratigya 2001...
and Haranath Chakraborty
Haranath Chakraborty
Haranath Chakraborty is a noted Indian Bengali film director. He is the most prominent director of the Bengali film Industry. He is assistant director of Anjan Chowdhury Group...
potboilers. Shubrajit Mitra's much-hyped Mon Amour Shesher Kobita Revisited, inspired by a Tagorit script, even the best of actors, singers, music and technical excellence can do nothing to save a film. Arin Paul
Arin Paul
Arin Paul is a Bengali film director, writer and researcher on film history.-Early life:Paul was born in Belur, West Bengal and raised in Shillong, Meghalaya and Calcutta. He attended St. Edmund's School, Shillong, Andrews High School, the Scottish Church Collegiate School, and Shyamaprasad...
's Doshta Dosh told an unusually funny story that failed because it lacked focus. Rati Agnihotri's first Bangla film Aainatey was also a flop as were two new directors’ debuts, Arjun Chakraborty
Arjun Chakraborty
Arjun Chakraborty is an Indian actor and director presently based at Kolkata.He made is debut as an actor in the 1983 Hindi film Zara Si Zindagi, and his first major role was in the 1986 film Ankush starring Nana Patekar. Later he shifted mainly to the Bengali film industry starting with the 1989...
's Tollylights and Sougata Roy Burman's 90 Hours, a slickly made psychological thriller. Both films directed by the talented cinematographer Riingo, Neel Rajar Deshe
Neel Rajar Deshe
Neel Rajar Deshe is a Bengali film Directed by Riingo Banerjee.-Plot:This “adventure story for kids” actually revolves around a naughty and adolescent kid, Raja’s adventures during his holidays spent in his home in the picturesque backdrop of North Bengal at the foothills of the mountains...
and Love
Love
Love is an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection. Love is central to many religions, as in the Christian phrase, "God is love" or Agape in the Canonical gospels...
, were massive flops because despite technical excellence, the films did not have a cohesive script and did not have much to say either.
Chirodini Tumi Je Amaar introduced the new director, Raj Chakraborty
Raj Chakraborty
Raj Chakraborty is an Indian Bengali film director. A person from middle class family background. Born in Halisahar of West Bengal. His first directorial debut film Chirodini Tumi Je Amar was released in 2008...
, who honed his skills with television. It also brought in two wonderfully fresh faces with talent to boot in Rahul and Priyanka Sarkar who play the star-crossed lovers in the film. Running neck-to-neck in the race to the biggest hit is Sandip Ray
Sandip Ray
Sandip Ray is a film director living in the city of Kolkata, West Bengal, India. He is the only son of the noted Bengali director Satyajit Ray, and Bijoya Ray.-Career:...
's Tintorettor Jishu
Tintorettor Jishu
Tintorettor Jishu is a mystery novel by Satyajit Ray about an adventure of Feluda. A movie directed by Sandip Ray has been made based on the story . An extensive shoot schedule at Hong Kong during May 2008 takes Feluda movies to a new height...
released in December. Coming a close second are the Koel Mullick-Dev
Dev (actor)
Dev is a Bengali film actor. His original name is Deepak Adhikari. He was born in 'Mahisha' a small village near Keshpur, West Midnapur, West Bengal. He spent his childhood in Chandrakona at his maternal uncle's place.After finishing his primary education, he returned to Mumbai to his parents...
starrer Mon Maane Naa
Mon Mane Na (2008 film)
Mon Mane Na is a Bengali romance Movie was released in 2008,directed by Sujit Guha, the movie featured Dev, Koyel Mullick. This movie is adopted from the 1995 American romantic comedy movie French Kiss.-Plot:...
and the Koel Mullick-Hiron starrer Chirosaathi. Another big hit was Bhalobasha Bhalobasha
Bhalobasa Bhalobasa (2008 film)
Bhalobasa Bhalobasa is a Bengali film by Rabi Kinagi.This movie is the second film of both Hiran Chatterjee and Srabanti Malakar.Hiran Chatterjee's first film was Nabab Nandini opposite of Koyel Mullick in 2007 and Srabanti Malakar's first film was Champion opposite of Jeet in 2003.After...
produced by Ashok Dhanuka and directed by Ravi Kinnagi starring Hiron opposite Shrabanti, making a comeback after marriage. Sandip Ray
Sandip Ray
Sandip Ray is a film director living in the city of Kolkata, West Bengal, India. He is the only son of the noted Bengali director Satyajit Ray, and Bijoya Ray.-Career:...
's Feluda adventure Kailase Kelenkari, Zor
Jor (2008 film)
Jor is a 2008 Bengali film directed by Swapan Saha. The movie features Jeet and Barsa Priyadarshini. It was a remake of the 2004 Tamil film Ghilli, which in turn was a remake of the 2003 Telugu film Okkadu...
starring Jeet
Jeet (actor)
Jeet is an actor from Kolkata, West Bengal, India. Although of Sindhi descent, he is a leading actor in the Bengali film industry...
and Varsha
Barsha Priyadarshini
Barsha Priyadarshini, is a leading Oriya language and Bengali actress in Bhubaneswar based Oriya Cinema at Ollywood and calcutta based Bengali Cinema at Tollywood respectively...
, Ravi Kinnagi's Premer Kahini
Premer Kahini
-Critical reception:The DDLJ sameness doesn’t end there. The lovebirds romance on the terrace, night after night, like Raj and Simran did. They sing and dance in the rain, around trees and on mountains sporting trendy jackets and chiffon saris.Dev is a show stealer from the start. He woos Koel —...
with Dev
Dev (actor)
Dev is a Bengali film actor. His original name is Deepak Adhikari. He was born in 'Mahisha' a small village near Keshpur, West Midnapur, West Bengal. He spent his childhood in Chandrakona at his maternal uncle's place.After finishing his primary education, he returned to Mumbai to his parents...
and Koel Mullick and Haranath Chakraborty
Haranath Chakraborty
Haranath Chakraborty is a noted Indian Bengali film director. He is the most prominent director of the Bengali film Industry. He is assistant director of Anjan Chowdhury Group...
's Bajimaat
Bajimaat
Bajimaat is a 2008 Bengali film directed by Haranath Chakraborty.-Plot:Suvra is a lower middle class young boy, who dreams of becoming a big singer. His girlfriend Jhilik also dreams of becoming a singer. Suvra and Jhilik are both trapped by a company of a reality show organisation...
exploring the ugly underbelly of musical reality shows on television, with two new faces Soham
Soham
Soham is a small town in the English county of Cambridgeshire. It lies just off the A142 between Ely and Newmarket . Its population is 9,102 , and it is within the district of East Cambridgeshire.-Archaeology:...
and Subhasree were also thumping hits at the box office. Anjan Dutt's Chalo Let's Go
Chalo Let's Go
Cholo Let's Go is a 2008 Indian movie in Bengali starring Ritwick Chakrabarty, Rudraneel Ghosh, Saswata Chatterjee and Parambrata Chatterjee and directed by Anjan Dutta.-Plot:...
, a road movie with a lilting musical score, is a big hit claims its producer Joy Ganguly. Rangan Chakrabarty's Bor Ashbe Ekhuni did well but was not a thumping hit. The year's last release, Raaj Kumar
Raaj Kumar
Raaj Kumar , born Kulbushan Pandit was an Indian actor in Hindi movies. Raaj Kumar started out as sub-inspector of Mumbai police in the late 1940s before he turned to acting with the 1952 film Rangili...
starring Prosenjit, did not do well. West Bengal is known for its parallel cinema.
The biggest star draws were Koel Mullick, Dev
Dev (actor)
Dev is a Bengali film actor. His original name is Deepak Adhikari. He was born in 'Mahisha' a small village near Keshpur, West Midnapur, West Bengal. He spent his childhood in Chandrakona at his maternal uncle's place.After finishing his primary education, he returned to Mumbai to his parents...
, Priyanka Sarkar, Rahul Banerjee, Hiron, Shoham
Shoham
Shoham is a town in the Center District of Israel.According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics , Shoham's population in the end of 2007 was 19,400. Its jurisdiction is 5,889 dunams ....
and Srabonti. In the music department, Jeet Ganguly is surely going places while as far as direction goes, Raj Chakraborty
Raj Chakraborty
Raj Chakraborty is an Indian Bengali film director. A person from middle class family background. Born in Halisahar of West Bengal. His first directorial debut film Chirodini Tumi Je Amar was released in 2008...
has his hands full of assignments he can pick and choose from. Rangan is likely to begin his second film this year and as one finishes this summing up, news trickles in that Bengali cinema will open its innings in 2009 with the release of Aniruddha Roychoudhury's Antaheen
Antaheen
Antaheen is a 2009 Bengali film directed by Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury. The film stars Radhika Apte, Rahul Bose, Mita Vashisth, Aparna Sen, Kalyan Ray and Sharmila Tagore.-Plot:...
starring Aparna Sen
Aparna Sen
Aparna Sen is a critically acclaimed Bengali Indian filmmaker, script writer, and actress. She is the winner of three National Film Awards and eight international film festival awards.-Biography:...
and Sharmila Tagore
Sharmila Tagore
Sharmila Tagore is an Indian film actress. She has won National Film Awards and Filmfare Awards for her performances.She has led the Indian Film Censor Board from October 2004 till March 2011...
in the same film for the first time with music by Shantanu Moitra
Shantanu Moitra
Shantanu Moitra is an Indian music director who has composed music for the Hindi film industry, and is most known for his score in films Parineeta , Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi , "Lage Raho Munnabhai" and 3 Idiots , and private albums, Mann ke Manjeere and Ab ke Saawan sung by Shubha Mudgal.-Early...
.
Budgets
70 Bengali movies are released every year and are produced with a budget of Rs.Indian rupee
The Indian rupee is the official currency of the Republic of India. The issuance of the currency is controlled by the Reserve Bank of India....
2 lakh
Lakh
A lakh is a unit in the Indian numbering system equal to one hundred thousand . It is widely used both in official and other contexts in Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and is often used in Indian English.-Usage:...
to Rs. 1.5 crore
Crore
A crore is a unit in the Indian number system equal to ten million , or 100 lakhs. It is widely used in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan....
per movie in 2008. India's big house Reliance Big Entertainment and Home Entertainment announced the most expensive Bengali movie will be made with a budget of Rs 3 crore, while other regional movies like the ones in Tamil and Telugu will have a budget of Rs 40 crore as on 2008. For reference: a crore
Crore
A crore is a unit in the Indian number system equal to ten million , or 100 lakhs. It is widely used in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan....
rupee = 10 million rupees
Indian rupee
The Indian rupee is the official currency of the Republic of India. The issuance of the currency is controlled by the Reserve Bank of India....
(roughly 160,000 euro
Euro
The euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...
s), and a lakh
Lakh
A lakh is a unit in the Indian numbering system equal to one hundred thousand . It is widely used both in official and other contexts in Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and is often used in Indian English.-Usage:...
= 100,000 rupees.
Many of the most critically acclaimed Bengali films were low-budget films, including Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray was an Indian Bengali filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema. Ray was born in the city of Kolkata into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature...
's famous The Apu Trilogy (1955–1959). The first film in the trilogy, Pather Panchali (1955), was produced on a shoestring budget of Rs.
Indian rupee
The Indian rupee is the official currency of the Republic of India. The issuance of the currency is controlled by the Reserve Bank of India....
1.5 lakh
Lakh
A lakh is a unit in the Indian numbering system equal to one hundred thousand . It is widely used both in official and other contexts in Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and is often used in Indian English.-Usage:...
($32000) using an amateur cast and crew. All his other films that followed also had low budgets, with his most expensive films being The Adventures Of Goopy And Bagha
Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne
Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne , directed by the late Satyajit Ray and based on a story by his grandfather Upendra Kishore Ray, is a popular Bengali children's film. It is sometimes released in the English-speaking world as The Adventures Of Goopy And Bagha...
(1968) at Rs. 6 lakh ($80,000) and The Chess Players (1977) at Rs. 20 lakh ($230,000).
The Bengali film industry, which had been a beacon for the country's film industry until the 1980s, is in a turnaround mode. At a time when Bollywood continues its roller-coaster ride, there are cheers in the Bengali film industry with several commercial successes. The dark period of the 1990s when Bengali tinsel town was on a steep decline seems like a nightmare that's best forgotten. And, with the money pouring in, producers from other States are now knocking on the doors of Bengali directors.Industry sources say that the best proof of the comeback is seen in the increasing number of cinema houses showing Bengali films. Even a few years ago, of the 800 movie theatres in the State, no more than 350 were showing just Bengali films. The remaining had spread their risk showing a mix of either Hindi and English or Hindi and Bengali films.2008, nearly 700 theatres are showing Bengali films.
The movie, produced by Ramoji Films
Ramoji Film City
Ramoji Film City is one of the world’s largest integrated film studio complexes at over of land, situated in India near Hayathnagar and Peddamberpet on Hyderabad. It is also a popular tourism and recreation centre, containing both natural and artificial attractions including an amusement park...
at a cost of Rs 65 lakh, recovered its costs within three weeks and is still raking in the moolah for its distributors, producers and theatre owners since last December.The movie has brought back the concept of family entertainment with Sandip Ray's gambit of contemporising the plot paying him rich dividend. Admitting that he did not expect this success, he told Life that he was now lining up another such film for release next year.Earlier, a film by award-winning director Buddhadeb Dasgupta
Buddhadeb Dasgupta
Buddhadeb Dasgupta is a poet and prominent contemporary Indian filmmaker, most known for films like Bagh Bahadur, Tahader Katha, Charachar and Uttara...
's Mondo Meyer Upakhyan
Mondo Meyer Upakhyan
Mondo Meyer Upakhyan is a 2002 Indian Bengali film directed and written by Buddhadev Dasgupta and starring Rituparna Sengupta...
(The Tale of a Fallen Girl) produced by Arjoe Entertainments netted nearly Rs 7 crore through sale of overseas rights against a cost of Rs 60 lakh.Haranath Chakraborty
Haranath Chakraborty
Haranath Chakraborty is a noted Indian Bengali film director. He is the most prominent director of the Bengali film Industry. He is assistant director of Anjan Chowdhury Group...
His film Sathi
Sathi
Sathi is a Bengali Movie was released in 2002. Directed by Haranath Chakraborty, the movie featured Jeet, Priyanka Trivedi, . This movie is Jeet and Priyanka Trivedi's cinematic debut.-Plot:...
(Companion) created a record by recouping over five times its production cost, although the film Chokher Bali
Chokher Bali
Chokher Bali , literally Sand of the Eye, equivalent to eyesore, is a Bengali novel written by Rabindranath Tagore in the early twentieth century.-Plot:...
, with big names like Aishwariya Rai, Rituparno Ghosh and Tagore, failed to yield expected results. The movie, billed at Rs 1.65 crore (the highest among Bengali films).
Total number of cinema theatre is approx 460.
Loose and unorganised production activities, dominated and dictated by providers of capital led to proliferation of sub-standard films, which were most often commercial failures.The recent successes have come through some concerted effort by Parallel Cinema
Parallel Cinema
The Indian New Wave, commonly known in India as Art Cinema or Parallel Cinema as an alternative to the mainstream commercial cinema, is a specific movement in Indian cinema, known for its serious content, realism and naturalism, with a keen eye on the sociopolitical climate of the times...
which has tapped the domestic market, even while scouting the overseas ones, hitting the festival circuit somewhere in between. As such, celluloid creations of award-winning directors like Gautam Ghosh, Rituparno Ghosh
Rituparno Ghosh
Rituparno Ghosh is a Bengali film director. He has won 8 National Film Awards in India and several awards at international film festivals abroad.- Early life and background :...
and Aparna Sen
Aparna Sen
Aparna Sen is a critically acclaimed Bengali Indian filmmaker, script writer, and actress. She is the winner of three National Film Awards and eight international film festival awards.-Biography:...
started bringing money for their producers. However, at around the same time, movies in the commercial circuit (directors like to call them mainstream cinema) also started doing well, supported strongly by the response from the semi-urban areas.The big Bollywood
Bollywood
Bollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai , Maharashtra, 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 other production centers producing...
banners such as Mukta Arts
Mukta Arts
-About:Mukta Arts Limited operates as an entertainment company in India. It primarily produces motion pictures. The company also involves in the production, distribution, and exhibition of television serials and entertainment software; equipment hiring; and generation and distribution of contents...
and Rajshri films are now showing interest in funding Bengali films.
Hollywood houses like Columbia Tristar have made their debut in distributing Bengali movies. According to industry experts, several issues need to be addressed to build on this resurgence and consolidate it.These include inadequate infrastructure, which often compels moviemakers to go outside the State for facilities pushing up costs, poor marketing and distribution and increasing competition from Bangladeshi films. Saregama Films, the entertainment company in the RPG group
RPG Group
The RPG Group one of India's largest industrial conglomerate headquartered in Mumbai, India. It was founded by RP Goenka in 1979, and initially encompassed Phillips Carbon Black, Asian Cables, Agarpara Jute and Murphy India...
, has decided to restrict its budget in film production to about Rs 5 crore and This would be a Rs 4-5-crore budget film.
Exploring Avant Garde Literature
In 2011 for the first time avant garde Bengali literature i.e. Hungry generationHungry generation
The Hungry Generation was a literary movement in the Bengali language launched by what is known today as the Hungryalist quartet i.e. Shakti Chattopadhyay, Malay Roy Choudhury, Samir Roychoudhury and Debi Roy alias Haradhon Dhara, during the 1960s in Kolkata, India...
movement of 1960s was incorporated by director Srijit Mukherji
Srijit Mukherji
Srijit Mukherji is an erstwhile economist, actor, director, lyricist, and theatrician from the Indian movie industry of West Bengal, Kolkata.-Early life:...
in his film Baishe Srabon
Baishe Srabon
Baishe Srabon is a 2011 Bengali musical thriller directed by director Srijit Mukherji. The cast of the movie consists of Prosenjit Chatterjee, Parambrata Chatterjee, Raima Sen, Abir Chatterjee and reputed actor Gautam Ghosh who made a come back after 29 years...
wherein famous film director Gautam Ghose
Gautam Ghose
Goutam Ghose is one of the most acclaimed film directors of modern India. Born in Calcutta. Graduated from Calcutta University....
portrayed the role of a Hungryalist poet.
Actors
Pramathesh BaruaPramathesh Barua
Pramathesh Chandra Barua was a famous actor, director, and screenwriter of Indian films in the pre-independence era.-Early life:...
Chhabi Biswas
Chhabi Biswas
Chhabi Biswas was a much revered Bengali character actor, primarily known for his performances in Tapan Sinha's Kabuliwala and Satyajit Ray's films Jalshaghar , Devi and Kanchenjungha .He is the best remembered for his numerous roles as the quintessential aristocratic patriarch, was himself the...
Uttam Kumar
Uttam Kumar
Uttam Kumar is one of the most famous names of Indian Bengali Cinema.Born Arun Kumar Chatterjee in 1926 at Ahiritola, North Calcutta he is widely known as Uttam Kumar and Mahanayak . He remains as much of a cultural icon as he had been in his lifetime...
Soumitra Chatterjee
Soumitra Chatterjee
Soumitra Chatterjee or Soumitra Chattopadhyay is an iconic Bengali actor from India, known among other things for his frequent collaborations with the great Bengali film director Satyajit Ray and his constant comparison with the Bengali screen idol Uttam Kumar.-Background:Soumitra graduated from...
Biswajit Chatterjee
Biswajit Chatterjee
Biswajit is a Bengali/Hindi actor. He was born in Calcutta, West Bengal, but later went over to Bombay to do some memorable Hindi films....
Utpal Dutt
Utpal Dutt
Utpal Dutt was an Indian actor, director, and writer-playwright. He was primarily an actor in Bengali Theatre, where he became a pioneering figure in Modern Indian theatre, when he founded the 'Little Theater Group' in 1947, which enacted many English, Shakespearean and Brecht plays, in a period...
Rabi Ghosh
Rabi Ghosh
Rabi Ghosh was an actor from India. He is best known for his comic roles in Bengali movies, though his versatile acting talent has stunned viewers and critics alike in various kind of roles. He was a regular in Satyajit Ray cinemas...
Victor Banerjee
Victor Banerjee
Victor Banerjee is an Indian actor who appears in Hindi, Bengali and English language films. He has also appeared on a number of TV series on Indian television...
Shamit Bhanja Ranjit Mallik Dipankar Dey Mithun Chakraborty
Mithun Chakraborty
Mithun Chakraborty is an Indian film actor, social activist, and entrepreneur, who has won three National Film Awards. He made his acting debut with the arthouse drama Mrigaya , for which he won his first National Film Award for Best Actor....
Prasenjit Chatterjee
Prasenjit Chatterjee
Prosenjit Chatterjee Prosenjit Chatterjee Prosenjit Chatterjee (also Prosenjit Chatterjee or Proshenjit Chattopadhyay , professionally known as Proshenjit, is a Bengali film actor. His fans affectionately called him Bumba Da...
Sabyasachi Chakraborty
Sabyasachi Chakraborty
Sabyasachi Chakraborty is a Bengali Indian male actor of TV and films. Sabyasachi Chakraborty is one of the most talented and prolific actors of Bengal whose acting prowess is well known all over India.-Early life:...
Tapas Pal
Tapas Pal
Tapas Pal born in 1960 in a remote village in Jalpaiguri district is a Bengali actor from Calcutta, the son of Dr. Ganash Pal of Chandannagar. He is a Member of Parliament having won in the 2009 Indian General Eelections on a Trinamool Congress ticket from Krishnanagar . His mother hails from a...
Anjan Dutta
Anjan Dutta
Anjan Dutta is a popular artist of the 1990s Bengali music scene defined by anyodharar gaan . Anjan Dutta's style of music is different from the others in the sense that it has simple tunes, one that is reminiscent of western folk music. His lyrics are simple and more natural...
Jeet
Jeet (actor)
Jeet is an actor from Kolkata, West Bengal, India. Although of Sindhi descent, he is a leading actor in the Bengali film industry...
Dev
Dev
Dev may refer to:People:* Dev Anand, a Indian Hindi movie actor* Dev, an Indian* Dev , Indian Bengali actor* Dev Patel, British actor, star of Slumdog Millionaire and Skins...
Jishu Sengupta
Jishu Sengupta
Jishu Sengupta , popularly known as Jisshu, is a popular Bengali film actor. Though, his real name is Biswaroop Sengupta, he is more famous as Jishu, his pet name. He is the son of Ujjwal Sengupta, also an actor of Bengali films. His mother, Mukta Sengupta, was a homemaker and a wedding planner...
Sanjoy Sinharoy
Actresses
Kanan DeviKanan Devi
Kanan Devi was an Indian actress and singer. She was among the early singing stars of Indian cinema, and is credited popularly as the first star of Bengali Cinema...
Chhaya Devi
Chhaya Devi
Chhaya Devi or Chhaya Debi was an Indian film actress. She has acted in hundreds of Bengali, Telugu, Tamil and Hindi language movies for over five decades and played many character roles...
Suchitra Sen
Suchitra Sen
Suchitra Sen ; or Rama Dasgupta , is an Indian actress who acted in several Bengali films. In particular, the movies in which she paired opposite another legend in Bengali films, Uttam Kumar, became classics in the history of Bengali cinema. She now lives a life of a recluse rarely making any...
Sharmila Tagore
Sharmila Tagore
Sharmila Tagore is an Indian film actress. She has won National Film Awards and Filmfare Awards for her performances.She has led the Indian Film Censor Board from October 2004 till March 2011...
Madhabi Mukherjee
Madhabi Mukherjee
Madhabi Mukherjee née Chakraborty is a reputed Bengali actress who has acted in some of the most critically acclaimed films in Bengali cinema.Her major role was the title role of Charu in Satyajit Ray's masterpiece Charulata...
Supriya Devi
Supriya Devi
Supriya Devi , also known as Supriya Choudhury , is an Indian Bengali female actor, acting in Bengali cinemas for more than 50 years. Her real name was Krishna and nickname is Benu. She received Banga-Vibhushan, the highest civilian honour in West Bengal in 2011.-Early life:Supriya Devi was born...
Sandhya Roy
Sandhya Roy
Sandhya Roy is an actress in the Bengali language film industry of West Bengal India. She is one of most famous actress in romantic bengali movies for her greatest skill in acting and very sweet face from 1960 to 1985.Being a versatile actress,she has experimented with successful character-acting...
Sabitri Chatterjee
Sabitri Chatterjee
Sabitri Chatterjee is an Indian Bengali female actor whose career as an actor spans more than 50 years. She was born in Comilla, in British India .-Early life:...
Aparna Sen
Aparna Sen
Aparna Sen is a critically acclaimed Bengali Indian filmmaker, script writer, and actress. She is the winner of three National Film Awards and eight international film festival awards.-Biography:...
Jaya Bhaduri Anjana Bhowmik Mithu Mukherjee Mousumi Chatterjee Mahua Roychowdhury Moonmoon Sen
Moonmoon Sen
Moon Moon Sen is an Indian film actress. She did movies in Bengali, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Marathi and Kannada films. Sen is part of a three generational family of actors and was a staple of the Bengali film industry, starring in many hit films...
Debashree Roy
Debashree Roy
Debashree Roy is a Bengali cinema actress. She acted in more than 100 films and has 40 awards, including a National Film Award for Best Actress for the film Unishe April in 1995. She was also known by the name 'Chintamani' in Tamil Nadu, when she acted in a few Tamil movies.- Early life :She was...
Shatabdi Roy
Shatabdi Roy
Shatabdi Roy , became a Member of Parliament in 2009, having won in the Indian General Elections on a Trinamool Congress ticket from the Birbhum constituency of West Bengal....
Rituparna Sengupta
Rituparna Sengupta
Rituparna Sengupta is an Indian actress. She is the leading actress in Bengali Cinema for the last decade in India, and is also currently performing in critically acclaimed Hindi Cinema.- Early life and education :...
Rachana Banerjee
Rachana Banerjee
Rachana Banerjee is a Bengali actress in Calcutta-based Bengali Cinema at Tollywood.She was born on October 2, 1978 in Calcutta, West Bengal, India. Apart from Bengali movies she has also done several Oriya movies, many along with Siddhanta Mahapatra...
Koyel Mullick
Koyel Mullick
Koyel Mallick is an Indian actress who appears in Bengali and Tollywood films. She is a daughter of Bengali actor Ranjit Mullick.-Early life:Mallick was born in Kolkata, West Bengal to Bengali actor Ranjit Mullick and his wife Deepa. Mallick has a B.Sc...
Konkona Sen Sharma
Konkona Sen Sharma
Konkona Sen Sharma is an Indian actress. She is the daughter of actress and filmmaker Aparna Sen. Sharma appears primarily in Indian arthouse and independent films, and her achievements in the genre have established her as one of the leading actresses of contemporary parallel cinema.Making her...
Raima Sen
Raima Sen
-Early life:She is the daughter of Moon Moon Sen and the granddaughter of legendary actress Suchitra Sen. Her sister, Riya Sen, is also in the Bollywood industry. Their father Bharat Dev Varma is a member of the royal family of Tripura. Her paternal grandmother, Ila Devi, was the princess of Cooch...
Ananya Chatterjee
Ananya Chatterjee
Ananya Chatterjee is a Bengali film actress known for her National Award-winning role in Abahoman. She started her career as a TV actress. She acted in several TV serials and films, including three directed by Anjan Dutt...
Swastika Mukherjee
Swastika Mukherjee
Swastika Mukherjee is a Bengali actress at Tollywood. She is daughter of actor Santu Mukherjee. Mukherjee's first stint with acting was the tele-serial Devdasi. She made her film debut in 2003 with the film Hemanter Pakhi directed by Urmi Chakraborty...
Srabanti Biswas
Srabanti Malakar
Srabanti Chatterjee Biswas , born 13 August 1987, Amritsar, India) is a Bengali Film actress.-Early Life:Early in her career, Srabanti worked in several Bengali telefilm serials, including Sudhu tomari jonnyo and Janmobhumi...
Payal Sarkar
Payal Sarkar
Payal Sarkar, is an Indian actress doing work in Bengali Films and also worked in Hindi television.-Early life:She completed her graduation in History from Jadavpur University in Kolkata in the year 2004...
Subhashree Ganguly
Nusrat Jahan
Producers
Top producers of Bengali films are RP Techvision, Rosevalley Films, Venkatesh Films and Surinder FilmsDirectors
Debaki BoseDebaki Bose
Debaki Bose , also known as Debaki Kumar Bose, was a top director, writer, actor of Bengali cinema/Indian cinema. He was born on 25 November 1898 in Akalpoush, Burdwan, Bengal, British India. He died on 17 November 1971 in Calcutta, West Bengal, India. He is known for his innovative use of sound...
Nitin Bose
Nitin Bose
Nitin Bose was an Indian film director, cinematographer and screenwriter of the nation's film industry. He was born in Calcutta and died in the same city. In the 1930s and early 1940s, he worked with New Theatres, who made bilingual movies: in both Bengali and Hindi...
Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray was an Indian Bengali filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema. Ray was born in the city of Kolkata into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature...
Bimal Roy
Bimal Roy
Bimal Roy was one of the most acclaimed Indian film directors of all time. He is particularly noted for his realistic and socialistic films like Do Bigha Zamin, Parineeta, Biraj Bahu, Madhumati, Sujata, and Bandini, making him an important director of Hindi cinema...
Ritwik Ghatak Mrinal Sen
Mrinal Sen
Mrinal Sen is a Bengali Indian filmmaker. He was born on 14 May 1923, in the town of Faridpur, now in Bangladesh in a Hindu family. After finishing his high school there, he left home to come to Calcutta as a student and studied physics at the well-known Scottish Church College and at the...
Tapan Sinha
Tapan Sinha
Tapan Sinha , was a Indian film director. He was arguably the most uncompromising filmmaker outside the orbit of Parallel Cinema.-Personal life and background:...
Shakti Samanta
Shakti Samanta
Shakti Samanta was an Indian film director and producer, who founded Shakti Films in 1957, which is most known for films like Howrah Bridge, China Town, Kashmir Ki Kali, An Evening in Paris, Kati Patang and Amar Prem.He received Filmfare Awards for Best Film for Aradhana, Anuraag and Amanush,...
Tarun Majumdar
Tarun Majumdar
Tarun Majumdar is a renowned Bengali Indian film director who makes films in Bengali and is notable for his depiction of Bengali culture and society. Many of his films are literature-based...
Hrishikesh Mukherjee
Hrishikesh Mukherjee
Hrishikesh Mukherjee ) was a famous Indian film director known for a number of films, including Satyakam, Chupke Chupke, Anupama, Anand, Abhimaan, Guddi, Gol Maal, Aashirwad, Bawarchi, and Namak Haraam.Popularly known as Hrishi-da, he directed 42 films during his career spanning over four decades,...
Buddhadev DasguptaAjay Kar Aparna Sen
Aparna Sen
Aparna Sen is a critically acclaimed Bengali Indian filmmaker, script writer, and actress. She is the winner of three National Film Awards and eight international film festival awards.-Biography:...
Hiralal Sen
Hiralal Sen
Hiralal Sen was an Indian photographer generally considered one of India's first filmmakers. He is also credited with creating India's first advertising films and quite possibly India's first political film...
Basu Bhattacharya
Basu Bhattacharya
Basu Bhattacharya was a Hindi film director , most famous for his 1966 film Teesri Kasam, starring Raj Kapoor and Waheeda Rehman , which won the National Film Award for Best Film in 1967; he also produced Sparsh in 1985 starring Shabana Azmi and Naseeruddin Shah, which won the Filmfare Best Movie...
Gautam Ghose
Gautam Ghose
Goutam Ghose is one of the most acclaimed film directors of modern India. Born in Calcutta. Graduated from Calcutta University....
Rituparno Ghosh
Rituparno Ghosh
Rituparno Ghosh is a Bengali film director. He has won 8 National Film Awards in India and several awards at international film festivals abroad.- Early life and background :...
Raj Chakraborty
Raj Chakraborty
Raj Chakraborty is an Indian Bengali film director. A person from middle class family background. Born in Halisahar of West Bengal. His first directorial debut film Chirodini Tumi Je Amar was released in 2008...
Ravi Kinagi Subrata Sen
Subrata Sen
Subrata Sen , is a critically acclaimed Bengali Indian film director, writer, novelist and producer.- Early life :Subrata Sen was born in Kolkata in 1963...
Anjan Dutta
Anjan Dutta
Anjan Dutta is a popular artist of the 1990s Bengali music scene defined by anyodharar gaan . Anjan Dutta's style of music is different from the others in the sense that it has simple tunes, one that is reminiscent of western folk music. His lyrics are simple and more natural...
Arin Paul
Arin Paul
Arin Paul is a Bengali film director, writer and researcher on film history.-Early life:Paul was born in Belur, West Bengal and raised in Shillong, Meghalaya and Calcutta. He attended St. Edmund's School, Shillong, Andrews High School, the Scottish Church Collegiate School, and Shyamaprasad...
Swapan Saha
Swapan Saha
Swapan Saha is a noted Indian film director.-His speciality:With the air of somebody who has achieved the impossible Swapan Saha says, "I've just completed Sat Bhai . It took 10 days, cost Rs 11 lakh and was shot within 100 hours." For Saha, this is about par...
Haranath Chakraborty
Haranath Chakraborty
Haranath Chakraborty is a noted Indian Bengali film director. He is the most prominent director of the Bengali film Industry. He is assistant director of Anjan Chowdhury Group...
Anjan Chowdhury Sandip Ray
Sandip Ray
Sandip Ray is a film director living in the city of Kolkata, West Bengal, India. He is the only son of the noted Bengali director Satyajit Ray, and Bijoya Ray.-Career:...
Sujit Guha
Sujit Guha
Sujit Guha ) is a Bengali film diector and scriptwriter.-Director:* Mon Maane Naa 2008* Sangharsha 2007* Eri Naam Prem 2006* Nayak 2006* Agnipath 2005* Deba 2002* Tak Misti Jiban 2002* Prem Pratigya 2001...
Sujit Mondal
Srijit Mukherji
Music Directors
Pankaj Kumar MullickRai Chand BoralNachiketa GhoshNachiketa Ghosh
Nachiketa Ghosh was one of the most powerful music director and composer of India. He mainly composed for Bengali, Hindi, and Oriya songs. He gave a new dimension to the Bengali music for both the arenas of Bengali modern song as well as Bengali film song...
Sudhin DasguptaHemanta Kumar Mukhopadhyay
Hemanta Kumar Mukhopadhyay
Hemanta Kumar Mukhopadhyay also known as Hemanta Mukherjee was an Bengali singer, composer and producer. He sang in Hindi films under the name Hemant Kumar.-Early life:...
Shyamal Mitra
Shyamal Mitra
Shyamal Mitra was one of the best known singers of Bengal in the 1950s to 70s. Along with Hemanta Mukherjee and Manna Dey he was the most notable singer of that period. With a good baritone his voice reflected a range of emotions...
Rahul Dev Burman
Rahul Dev Burman
Rahul Dev Burman commonly known as R. D. Burman and nicknamed Pancham da or simply Pancham, was an influential Bollywood music composer. He was the only son of singer and Bollywood music composer Sachin Dev Burman and his wife Meera...
Bappi Lahiri
Bappi Lahiri
Bappi Lahiri or Alokesh Lahiri , born 27 November 1952, is a music director in the Hindi film industry. He pioneered the use of disco music in Indian cinema and sang some of his own compositions. He was popular in the 1980s with films like Disco Dancer, Namak Halaal and Sharaabi among others.-Early...
Ajay Das Salil Chowdhury
Salil Chowdhury
Salil Chowdhury was an Indian music composer. He mainly composed for Bengali, Hindi, and Malayalam films. He was also a poet and a playwright. He is affectionately called Salilda by all his admirers....
Jeet Ganguly
Awards
- Bengal Film Journalists' Association AwardsBengal Film Journalists' Association AwardsThe Bengal Film Journalists' Association is the oldest Association of Film critics in India, founded in 1937, by the inspiration and determination of the handful of pioneers amongst the then thin section of scribes that were drawn to film journalism with a lofty mission to serve the developing...
-The oldest Association of Film critics in India, founded in 1937, by the inspiration and determination of the handful of pioneers amongst the then thin section of scribes that were drawn to film journalism with a lofty mission to serve the developing film journalism and film industry. - Anandalok AwardsAnandalok AwardsAnandalok Awards or Anandalok Puraskar ceremony is one of the most prominent film events given for Bengali Cinemas in India. The Anandalok, only film magazine in Bengali language, published from Ananda Publishers and Ananda Bazar Patrika presents this Award...
-Ceremony is one of the most prominent film events given for Bengali CinemaBengali cinemaBengali cinema refers to the Bengali language filmmaking industries in the Bengal region of South Asia. There are two major film-making hubs in the region: one in Kolkata, West Bengal, India and the other in Dhaka, Bangladesh .The history of cinema in Bengal dates back to the 1890s, when the first...
in India - Kalakar AwardsKalakar AwardsKalakar Awards or Kalakar Puraskar ceremony is one of the most prominent film events given for Bengali Cinemas in India.-History & Background:...
-Ceremony is recognized as one of the topmost awards ceremonies of eastern region of India. - Tellysamman Awards-Sangbad PratidinSangbad PratidinSangbad Pratidin is an Indian Bengali newspaper published from Kolkata, India. It started publishing from 9 August 1992, owned by Swapan Sadhan Basu....
, a Kolkata based Bengali daily organized this Award Ceremony. - Zee Bangla Gourav Samman-These awards are designed for the people by the people. Zee Bangla would be honoring the rich culture and tradition of the land and felicitating the evergreen personalities from the field of theatre, film, music and our own television shows.
Archive
Bengali film directory
Bengali film directory is the only one archive of Bengali films . Published in March 1999, Nandan, West Bengal Film Centre . This directory book was edited by Ansu Sur and was compiled by Abhijit Goswami...
(in English Language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
), Published in 1999, Nandan
Nandan (Kolkata)
Nandan is a government sponsored centre in Calcutta, India for facilitating film awareness and includes a few comparatively large screens housed in an impressively architectured building. It shares its site with the Rabindra Sadan cultural centre. The complex, besides being a modern cinema and...
, West Bengal Film Centre (Calcutta). This directory book was edited by Ansu Sur and was compiled by Abhijit Goswami. It covers almost all released Bengali feature films from 1917 to 1998 with short descriptions including detailed cast and crew, director name, released date and released theater name.
Industries
Today, there are two Bengali language film industries, one in TollygungeTollygunge
Tollygunge is a locality of South Kolkata. It is flanked by the Eastern Railway south suburban line to the north, Lake Gardens and Golf Green in the east, the Pashchim & Purba Putiaries in the south, and Behala in the west.-History:...
, in Kolkata
Kolkata
Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...
, India (sometimes called Tollywood a portmanteau of the words Tollygunge and Hollywood, also known as Tollywood) is one of many centres for Indian regional filmmaking and the other one in Dhaka
Dhaka
Dhaka is the capital of Bangladesh and the principal city of Dhaka Division. Dhaka is a megacity and one of the major cities of South Asia. Located on the banks of the Buriganga River, Dhaka, along with its metropolitan area, had a population of over 15 million in 2010, making it the largest city...
, Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
(sometimes called Dollywood, a portmanteau of the words Dhaka and Hollywood, also known as Dhallywood) is the mainstream national film industry of Bangladesh (see Cinema of Bangladesh
Cinema of Bangladesh
The Bangladeshi film industry has been based in Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka, since 1956. As of 2004, it produced approximately 100 movies a year, with an average movie budget of about 20,000,000 Bangladeshi taka...
).
See also
- Cinema of the world
- Bengali cinemaBengali cinemaBengali cinema refers to the Bengali language filmmaking industries in the Bengal region of South Asia. There are two major film-making hubs in the region: one in Kolkata, West Bengal, India and the other in Dhaka, Bangladesh .The history of cinema in Bengal dates back to the 1890s, when the first...
- Eastern India Motion Pictures Association (EIMPA)
- List of Bengali films
- Cinema of BangladeshCinema of BangladeshThe Bangladeshi film industry has been based in Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka, since 1956. As of 2004, it produced approximately 100 movies a year, with an average movie budget of about 20,000,000 Bangladeshi taka...
- Cinema of IndiaCinema of IndiaThe cinema of India consists of films produced across India, which includes the cinematic culture of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Orissa, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal. Indian films came to be followed throughout South Asia and...
- Parallel CinemaParallel CinemaThe Indian New Wave, commonly known in India as Art Cinema or Parallel Cinema as an alternative to the mainstream commercial cinema, is a specific movement in Indian cinema, known for its serious content, realism and naturalism, with a keen eye on the sociopolitical climate of the times...