History of cinema in India
India produces the maximum no.of movies per year, (1200 for the year 2002 !!) although most of them are commercial flops. Thus Indian film is potentially the only competitor for the western Hollywood.
Also Indian films differ significantly from any other kind of films in the world. Indian films are considered to be melodramatic, unrealistic and alarmingly lengthy with shoddy scripts. Filmi music play a significant role in Indain movies. 6 Songs are considered to be mandatory in every Indian movie.
However, a few movie makers have been exceptionally good even in such murky environments.
Notable Indian movie makers:
- Satyajit Ray
- Shekhar Kapur
- Mrinal Sen
- Shyam Benegal
- Mira Nair
- Bimal Roy
- Adoor Gopalakrishnan
- Guru Dutt
- Dr.K.Viswanath
- Mani Rathnam
- K. Balachander
Notable Indian actors/actresses:
- Raj Kapoor
- Sivaji Ganesan
- NT Rama Rao
- Nargis Dutt
- Savitri
- Kamal Hassan
- Naseeruddin Shah
- Om Puri
- Shabana Azmi
- Roshan Seth
- Amrish Puri
Notable Indian Filmi music composers:
Film industry is referred with different names in different parts of the country
- Bollywood (Hindi film industry - the Indian "Hollywood")
- Mollywood (refers to Tamil film industry)
- Tollywood (refers either to Bengali or Telugu film industry)
- Kollywood (refers to Malayalam film industry)
- See also : Film history