First film museum opens in home of Bollywood
mumbai — From silent black-andwhite films to colourful blockbusters bursting with song and dance, the evolution of Indian cinema is traced by a new museum in the home of Bollywood.
Costing Rs1.4 billion, India’s first national film museum is spread across a stylish 19th-century bungalow and a modern five-storey glass structure in south Mumbai.
“It showcases to the world outside what Indian cinema has achieved in its entirety over more than 100 years,” said Amrit Gangar, a consulting curator on the project.
Movie-mad India today produces around 1,500 films a year, dwarfing even Hollywood’s output.
The government-funded National Museum of Indian Cinema boasts stacks of memorabilia, recordings and film-making tools as well as interactive touch screens where visitors can watch clips from memorable movies.
Movie buffs can learn about India’s first full-length feature film, the 1913 Dadasaheb Phalke-directed Raja Harishchandra, and listen to recordings of K. L. Saigal, considered the first superstar of Hindi-language cinema. They are also able to view hand-painted movie posters, including for internationally acclaimed director Satyajit Ray’s 1955 hit Pather Panchali, and click selfies beside a statue of Bollywood icon Raj Kapoor.
The museum takes visitors through “the journey of Indian cinema, from silent films to ‘talkies’ to
the studio era to the new wave,” said Prashant Pathrabe, director general of the Indian government’s film department.
Bollywood is a nickname for the Hindi-language film industry that is based in Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay.
The museum celebrates not just
Bollywood but also the movies made in the various regions and languages across India.
“Films are made in about 25 different regional languages in India and all are included here so that the entire country, irrespective of which part you come from, can enjoy this museum,” said Pathrabe. —