Revisiting Bengali films in the 100th year of Indian cinema May 20, 2013, 12:25 PM IST
Sharmistha Gooptu is a film scholar and has a PhD in history from the University of Chicago. She is a founder and managing trustee of the South Asia Research Foundation (SARF), and editor of the online South Asia Archive. She is also the joint editor of the journal South Asian History and Culture (Routledge) and the Routledge South Asian History and Culture book series. LESS. MORE
As Indian cinema celebrates its 100 years, attention, for a large part, has been centred on Bombay, where Dadasaheb Phalke’s mythological Raja Harishchandra- the ‘first’ full-length ‘Indian’ film- released in 1913. However, Calcutta, till 1911, the capital of British India, already had a nascent film industry in the 1910s, and was almost at par with Bombay in silent and first talkie eras– a history that is often forgotten. Over the years, Bengali cinema has had its own presence, producing