Milestones of India Cinema

Milestones of Indian Cinema

Though film production commenced in India in 1913, it is necessary to record the progress of the film business from 1896, the historical year when Lumiere Bros' films were exhibited at Watson Hotel in Mumbai. This was the forerunner of the film industry in India; as it held many future technicians spellbound, and went on to encourage the making of the motion picture in India.

1896
First Cinema Show
The first Cinema show in India was arranged by the agents of two French brothers, Louis and August Lumiere, pioneers of the Cinematography in France, at the Watson Hotel in Bombay on July 7, 1896 and the show was Marvel of the Century.

First Cinema Advertisement
The first cinema advertisement in India appeared in the Times of India, Bombay on July 7, 1896, which carried details of the “Living Photographic pictures in life-size reproductions by Messrs Lumiere Brotheres.

1897
First Indian to handle a cine camera
Harishchandra Sakharam Bhatvadekar alias Save Dada was the first Indian to import a Cine-camera from London at a price of 21 guineas and made a topical in 1897. He filmed a wrestling bout between Pundalik and Krishna Nhavi, which was specially arranged at the Hanging Gardens in Bombay.

1898
First Bioscope
Prof. Stevenson brings “first Bioscope” to Calcutta at the Star Theatre. “Panorama of Calcutta”- an early Indian coverage by foreign cameramen.

1899
Harishchandra Sakharam Bhatvadekar ( Save Dada), a photo goods dealer, turns exhibitor and film maker.

1901
First Indian Film
“Return of Wrangler Paranjapee”- first Indian Actually Film shot by Bhatvadekar. Haralal Sen stars working in Bengal by filming extracts from stage-plays.

1902
J.F. Madan (1856-1926) launches his bioscope show in a tent at Calcutta Maidan.

1904
First Cinema show on regular basis
Manek D Sethna, who owned a cinema project, started a touring cinema with the screening of the first film “ Life of Christ” on a regular basis in Bombay in 1904. Abdulally Essofally, enterprising showman, makes the masses movie-conscious, takes up exhibition as a regular business proposition.

1907
First Cinema
The First Cinema hall in India as built by J.F. Madan in Calcutta in 1907 and it was named Elphinstone Picture Palace.

1911
First Mini Feature Film
After filming the Imperial Darbar of 1911, three business partners S.N. Patankar Anantram Parshuram Karandikar and V.P. Divekar who had earlier purchased the cine camera from Save Dada, produced the first mini-feature film (about 1,000 feet) “Savitri” in 1912. Narmada Mande, a young lady from Ahmedabad, K G Gokhale and divekar himself featured in the leading roles of the film, which could not see the screen due to several technical reasons and flaws.

First Theatrical film
Shreepad Sangit Mandali, a professional theatre group of Bombay, was performing a theatre play “pundalik” during 1911 in Bombay. Narayan Govind Chitre alias Nana Bhai Chita of India Press, Bombay sought help from R.P. Tipnis, Manager of Corontion Cinematograph, and decided to picturise the stageplay Pundalik. They took R.G. Torney alias Dada Saheb Torney, along with them to direct the proposed film. M/s Bourne and Shepherd, a British concern, took keen interest in the venture and joined hands with the promoters by providing them a cameraman, Johnson to shoot the film at Mangaldas Wadi in Bombay. The film also named “PUNDALIK” was exhibited on May 18, 1912 at Coronation Cinematography, Bombay.

1912
First Foreign-Returned Indian Cine-Technician
Dadasaheb Phalke was the first foreign returned Indian cine- technician who learned filmcraft from Cecil Hepworth, a prominent producer at Walton in England, for about a week in February 1912, March 1912.

First City of Film Production
Bombay was the first city in India where film production started in 1912

1913
First Indian feature film
RAJA HARISHCHANDRA was the first Indian feature film produced by an Indian, with out any foreign collaboration, Dadasaheb Phalke in 1912. The film was however released on May 3, 1913 at Coronation Cinematograph, Bombay.

First Producer
Dadasaheb Phalke, who released his first film RAJA HARISHCHANDRA ON May 3, 1913, was the first film producer of India.

First “Heroine” of Indian Film
The first heroine for Indian film was not a female but a young boy. Salunke, who acted as Taramati in India's first feature film “Raja Harishchandra”.

First Female Heroine
Kamala, a Maharashtrian lady, was the first female heroine in an Indian film with her lead role in Dadasaheb Phalke's second film “Bhasmasur Mohini” produced in 1913. Kamala's mother Durgabai also featured in the film.

First Hero
Dattatraya Damodar Dabke was the first hero of an Indian film. He acted as Harishchandra in “Raja Harishchandra” in 1913.

First Artiste playing as both hero & heroine
Salunke, acted as both Ram and Seeta, In Phalke's fifth film” Lanka Dahan” produced in 1917.

First Technician
Dadasaheb Phalke was not only the film producer but also the first director, writer, cameraman, make-up man, editor, art director and cine-laboratorian, with his first film “Raja Harishchandra”.

1914
First Indian feature film shown Abroad
“Raja Harishcnadra” was the first Indian Film which was shown on percentage basis in London in 1914.

1917
First feature film from Bengal
J.F. Madan produced Bengal first, feature film “Nal Damyanti” in 1917. This film had two Italians, namely, Signor and Signora Manelli in the leading roles. A new actress Patience Cooper was also introduced in the film. The film was photographed by cameraman Jyotish Sarkar.

1918
First Act to regulate cinema
The first Act which regulated and controlled the Indian film industry was enacted in 1918 and it was known as Indian Cinematograph Act 1918.

First Indian Serial
S. N. Patankar's “Exile of Shri Rama” was the first Indian Serial.

First Hollywood-trained Indian
Suchet Singh was the first Hollywood-trained Indian who had taken training in cinema technique in America and had worked as an associated under Charlie Chaplin in 1918. He returned by the end of 1918 and formed the Oriental Film Manufacturing Company Ltd. which produced its maiden film “shakuntala” in 1920.

1919
First silent feature film from South India
R. Nataraja Mudaliar of Madras made “ Keechaka Vadham” the first silent feature film from South India.

First Female Child Star
Manadakini, daughter of Dadasaheb Phalke, was the first female child star, who featured as the child Krishna in Phalke's “Kaliya Mardan” produced by Hindustan cinema Film Company in 1919.

First Indian Made Cine-Camera
Anandrao Painter of Kolhapur was the first Indian to make a cine-camera with the help of an old cine-projector and he shot a comic film around 1918. After his death, his brother Baburao Painter produced his first film “Sairandhiri” under the banner of Maharashtra Film Company in 1919 with the help of this Indian camera.

First Film Distributor
Dadasaheb Phalke was distributing his films himself. But this business was first handled in a proper manner by R. G. Torney in 1919 under the name and style of M/s Western Movies.

First title bestowed upon any film personality
Baburao Painter was the first film personality who was bestowed with the title of Cinema Kesari by Lokmanya Tilak in 1919 after seeing his silent film “Sairandhri” produced by Maharashtra Film Company.

1920
First Cinema Poster
Baburao Painter was the first man to advertise his film “Vatsala Haran” through cinema posters as a publicity campaign in 1920.

First Film Censor Board
For the first time Boards of Film Censors were set up in Bombay, Calcutta, Madras and Rangoon in 1920 and later on at Lahore in 1927.

1921
First feature film from South
The first feature film produced in South India was “Bhishma Pratigna” produced by R. Venkiah and R. Prakash of Stars of the East Film Company, Madras in 1921.

First Social Satire
Dhiren Ganguly made “ England Returned”, the first social satire on an Indian obsessed with Western ideas, “Vali Thirumanam” made in Madras by Whittakar, is critically ac claimed and is also a box-office success.

First Artificial Lights
Baburao Painter was the first man in India to use artifical lights while making his film “Sinhagad” in 1921.

1922
First Levy of Entertainment Tax
The first levy of Entertainment Tax was o,[psed om Nemga; om 1922 and later on in Bombay in 1923 at 12 -1/2 percent.

1926
First Lady Director
The first lady director in India was Begum Fatima Sultana (wife of the Nawab of Sachien State), mother of Princess, Zubeida, star of “Alam Ara”. Begum Fatima not only acted but produced and directed several silent films including “Bulbule Paristan” “Goddess of Luck”, “Chandravati” and Milan Dinar”

First Cinema Trade Organisation
The Bombay Cinema and Theatres Trade Association, formed around 1926, was the first cinema trade organization in India. After sometime the Indian Motion Picture Association was also formed in Bombay. The Madras Cinema and Theatre League was formed in Madras in 1929. However, actual trade activities started only after the formation of the Motion Picture Society of India in Bombay in June 1932

1927
First Independent Film Processing Laboratory
The first Independent Film Processing laboratory was setup by Narayanrao Alias Dhanjibhai K. Desai in Bombay in October 1927. It was known as Atmanand Labortory.

First Indian Cinematograph Enquiry Committee
The Govt. of India appointed the first Indian Cinematograph Enquiry Committee on 6 th October 1927. The Indian Cinematograph Committee, set up under the Chairmanship of Dewan Bahudar T. Rangachariar; J.C. Daniel makes first Malayalam film “Vigada Kumaran” “Exceptional Young Man”.

First Double Role
Master Vithal was the first actor who portrayed a double role in a feature film “Prisoner of Love” produced by Sharda Film Company in 1927. The company owned by Nanubhai Desai and Bhogilal K.M. Dave, was founded in 1925.

1929
First Talkies Short Production in India
J.F. Madan and J.J. Madan of Madan Theates Ltd., Calcutta had received their sound equipment from America and they started producing as well as exhibiting sound films in India. They released a two reeler sound film in their talkies cinema, Elphinstone Picture Palace, Calcutta, in 1929.

First Talkie Feature Film Shown in India
The first Talkie Feature film shown in India was Universal's “Melody of Love” in English, which celebrated its premiere at Elphinstone Picture Palace in Calcutta in 1929.

1931
First Talkie Shorts released in Bombay
Some talkie shorts produced by Madan Theatres Ltd. , Calcutta and Krishan Film Company, Bombay; were released for the first time in the Lamingrone and Empress Cinemas in Bombay on February 4, 1931.

First Indian Talkie feature film
The first full length talkie feature film produced in India was “ ALAMARA ” Light of the World in Hindustani, produced by Ardeshir M. Irani of Imperial Film Company, Bombay. It was released at the Majestic Cinema, Bombay, on March 14, 1931.

First Talkie from Bengal
The first talkie film from Bengal was “ JAMAI SASTHI ” in Bengali produced by Madan Theatres Ltd. in 1931.

First Tamil Talkie
Sagar Movietone's “ KALIDASS ” was the first Tamil feature film starring T.P. Rajalakshmi and directed by H.M. Reddi. The film with Tamil dialogue and Telugu songs was released in Madras on October 31, 1931.

First Talkie Film Distributor
Talkie film distribution came into existence with the advent of talkie film in 1931. Sagar Movietone, founded by Chimanlal Desai, stated the business of distribution by taking the distribution of India's first Talkies “ALAM ARA ” in 1931.

First Song
“De de khuda ke naam par” was the first song recorded for “Alam Ara” in 1931. it was sung by W.M. Khan under the music direction of Phiroz Shah.

First Music Director
Phiroz Shah Mistry was the first music director of the talkie film “Alam Ara”.

First Advertising Film Company
Niranjan Pal of Publicity/Drammatic Film Co. (1931) was the first Indian to introduce the advertising film production and business in India in 1931.

1932
First Talkie film from Punjab
“ HEER RANJAH ” in Hindi was the first talkie feature film from Punjab. It was produced by Hakim Ram Prasad on Play Art Photophone Company in 1932. This talkie film was censored by the Punjab Board.

First Marathi Film
Prabhat Film Company's “AYODHECHA RAJA” Directed by V.Shantaram in 1932 was the first Marathi film which starred Durga Khote.

First Double Version talkie
“AYODHYECHA RAJA” in Marathi and “Ayodhya Ka Raja” in Hindi were the first double version talkie films produced by Prabhat Film Company in 1932.
First Talkie which celebrated Silver Jubliee

“SHYAMSUNDER” in Marathi, produced by Dadasaheb Torne of Saraswati Cinetone and directed by Bhal G. Pendarkar was the first Indian talkie which celebrated silver jubilee by running for 27 weeks at the West End Cinema in Bombay in 1932.

First Talkie Film on Fidelytone Sound System
Eastern Film's “Shikari” in Hindi was the first talkie film with sound recorded on the Fidelytone Sound System brought into India by a foreign film unit in1932.
First Film With Maximum Songs

Madan Theatres “Indra Sabha” in 1932 is the only film produced so far with a record number of 71 songs. Madan's other three films “ CHATRABAKAVALI ”, “Guru Zarina” and “Bilwamangal” Produced in 1932 had 41, 37 songs respectively, Meenakshi Cinetone's “Pavalakkodi”, produced in 1934, had 50 songs while Angle Film's Tamil hit “Sri Hrishna Leela” in 1934 had 62 songs.

First Film With Background Music
New Theatre's “Chandidas” in Bengali was the first talkie film in which “Background” music was scored by music director R.C. Boral in 1932. Prabhat Film Company's “Amrit Manthan” released at almost the same time also had imaginative background music scored by music director Keshavrao Bhole.

1933
First Air-Conditioned Cinema
First air-conditioned cinema Regal started in Bombay.

First Colour Film
Prabhat Film Company's “Sairandhri” was the first talkie film produced in Multicolour in 1933. However, as the colour quality was not satisfactory Imperial Film Company's “KISAN KANYA ” produced in 1937 is considered as the first colour film. Minerva Movietone's “Jhansi Ki Rani” was the first technically perfect Technicolour film directly shot on 35mm in 1953.

First Film shot in Ellora Caves
Gandharva Cinetone was, the first film company to utilize the famous Ellora Caves in their talkie film “Sati Mahananda” in 1933, written and directed by Baburao Patel.
First Talkie released in England

“Karma” (Fate) in which Devika Rani co-starred with Himansu Rai was an Anglo-Indian co-production and had a premiere of its English version in London in May 1933. The Hindi version of the film was premiered at Bombay on January 27, 1934.

1934
First Talkie shown at Venice Film Festival
The Bengali talkie film “Seeta”, directed by Debaki Bose, was the first Indian talkie film shown at the Venice Film Festival in 1934

First Talkie Produced in South
“Srinivas Kalyanam” in Tamil was the first talkie produced in the South by Srinivas Cinetone and directed by A.Narayanan in Madras in 1934. It featured R.B. Lakshmi Devi in the main role.

First Telugu Film from South
The first Telugu talkie produced by South Indian Technicians entirely in the South, in Madras, was “Seetha Kalyanam” produced by P.V. Das at the Vel Pictures Studio. Starring Rama Tilakam in the main role in 1934.

First Cartoon Film
For the first time a cartoon short was made by Messrs. Ketkar and Raosaheb Oak in 1933. Prabhat Film Company also announced a cartoon film “Jambu Kaka” but on hearing this news R.C. Boral of New Theatres started his own Cartoon film “ON A MOONLIGHT NIGHT” and completed it within one month and released it even before the completion of “Jambu Kaka”. However, “Jambu Kaka” was released at the Majestic Cinema, Bombay, on November 15, 1934 along with “Amrit Manthan”.

First Hindi Talkie to celebrate Silver Jubilee
Prabhat Film company's “Amirt Manthan” was the first talkie in Hindi which celebrated Silver Jubilee at Krishna Talkies, Bombay, by running for 29 weeks at a stretch in 1934.

1935
First Playback
Playback's was introduced in the talkie “ Bhagya Chakra” (Dhoop Chaon) produced by New Theatres in 1935 and Bombay talkie ‘Milan' B/W. Music Director R.C. Boralhad composed the music for the film.

First All India Motion Picture Convention
The first All India Motion Picture convention was held in Bombay on February 20, 1935 under the auspices of the Motion Picture Society of India headed by Mr. B.V. Jadhav.

The Parsi Panchayat took strong objection to Parsi Music Director Saraswati Devi and Chandraprabha (known as Homi Sisters) who acted in JAWANI KI HAWA . Morchas were taken out to prevent the release of the film which finally opened at Imperial Cinema under Police Protection. Parsi members of Bombay Talkies, Board of Directors including Sir Phirozshah Mehta, Sir Cavasji Jehangir & F.E. Dinshaw refused to resign. Thereafter the agitation died down. Bombay Talkies arranged a special show for Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru to see their film ACHHUT KANYA .

1937
First Kannada-Tamil Double Version Film
The first talkie film produced simultaneously in two versions, in Kannada and Tamil, was “PURANDARDAS” by Devi Films in 1937.
First Film without Any Song

Wadia Movietone's “ Naujawan” was the first talkie without any song produced in 1937.

First Colour Film Laboratory
K.B. Ardeshir M Irani of Imperial Film Company established a colour film laboratory for the first time in India in 1937. Imperia's “Kisan Kanya” was the first cine colour film from this laboratory.
IMPPA Formed

Formation of Indian Motion Picture Producers” Association in Bombay
“CHITAMANI” (Tamil), directed by Y.V. Rao and starring M.K. Thilagaraja Bhagavathar and K. Aswathama (13 th March), creates a record for continuous run for more than one year in one cinema house alone.

Debaki Bose gives lyrical and philosophical treatment to the life of a Vaishnative poet in New Theatres ‘ VIDYAPATI'.

1938
First Malayalam Talkie
The first talkie film in Malayalee was “Balan” produced by Modern Theatres Ltd. Salem in 1938. It was directed by Notani.

Formation of South Indian Film Chamber of Commerce in Madras and Indian Motion Picture Distributor's Association in Bombay.

First Camera Crane
Wadia Movietone used the camera crane for the first time in India while producing their films in 1938. The crane was built in their own workshop under the expert care of B.M. Tara.

1939
Silver Jubilee celebrations of the Indian Cinema in Bombay (in May)

First Hindi Talkie from South
“Prem Sagar” produced and directed by K. Subramanyam in 1939 was the first Hindi Talkie produced in the south.

1942
First Film Society
Bombay Film Society was the first film society in India formed in Bombay in 1942.
First Govt. Control over length & Distribution of Raw Film

The Govt. of India restricted the footage of the feature films to 11,000 feet and that of trailers to 400 feet, from May 16, 1942. Further, distribution of raw film was also controlled for the first time from 17 th July 1943 to 15 th Dec. 1945.

1943
Government Control on the distribution of raw film; The Information Films of India and Indian News Parade, set up by Government to produce documentaries and newsreels; Exhibition of Government “approved” films made compulsory under D.I.R. 44 A.

1944
First Talkie Produced in English Language
Wadia Movietone's “The Court Dancer” was the first Indian Talkie which had English dialogue. It was released in USA in 1944. Dadasaheb Phalke, father of Indian Cinema, passes away on 16 th Feb. 1944.

1947
Bombay Talkies ‘KISMAT', made in 1943, creates an all time record for the longest continuous run of more than three and a half years at a single cinema ROXY in Calcutta.

1948
First Ballet Film
Screen and Stage Production Madras “Kalpana” directed by Uday Shankar in 1948 was the first ballet film in India. It had dialogue by Amrit Lal Nagar and Lyrics by Sumitra Nandan Pant.

1949
First 16mm colour feature film
Bhavnani Productions ‘Rangeen Zamana” produced and directed by M. Bhavnani in 1948 (released as “Ajit” in 1949) was the first colour feature film produced on Kodachrome and blown up to 35mm.

First Time “A” and “U” Classification
The Indian Cinematograph Act 1918 was amended in December 1949 by which time censorship was made a Central subject for the first time and two types of categories “A” and “U” were prescribed for certification of films.

1950
First Film With “A” certificate
Akash Chitra's “Hanste Aansu” was the first Hindi feature film in 1950 which was is sued an “A” Certificate (Film suitable for exhibition to Adults only) in India.

1951
• Formation of Central Board of Film Censors with B.N. Sircar on the Board.
• Launching of Film Federation of India under the presidentship of Chandulal J Shah.
• Formation of SIMPSA in Madras and CCCA in Bhusaval.
• “Aan” produced by Mehboob in colour 16mm and blown up to 35mm.
• Weekly Magazine SCREEN started by Indian Express.

1952
First International Film Festival
The Films Division of the Government of India sponsored and organized the First International Film Festival of India in Bombay on January 24, 1952, which continued for a fortnight.

1953
First President's Gold Medal
P.K. Atre's “SHYAMCHI AYEE” in Marathi was the first film to get the President's Gold Medal, considered as the best film of 1953.

India's first Technicolour film ‘ JHANSI KI RANI' was produced by Sohrab Modi for Minerva Movietone with foreign technicians.

The film magazine Filmfare introduced Awards, the Award for the best film going to ‘ DO BIGHA ZAMIN'

1954
Film Producers Guild is formed

First National Awards
The annual State Awards for film were introduced for the first time by Government in 1954.

1955
First film seminar
The first film seminar was convened by Sangeet Nataka Akademi and inaugurated by Prime Minister Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru.

1956
First Film Exempted from Entertainment Tax
Rajkamal Kalamandir's JHANAK JHANAK PAYAL BAJE was the first film to be exempted from entertainment tax in 1956. Dr V Shantaram was a founder member of the Film Producers Guild

1957
K. A. Abbas made the first Indo-Russian Co-production “PARDESI” in Hindi and Russian.

1960
First Excise Duty on release prints
Excise Duty was levied by the Government on release prints for the first time in India on April 1, 1960.

1961
First Cinemascope film
Guru Dutt's “Kagaz Ke Phool” in 1959 was the first Cinemascope film shot in black and white. Later in 1961 Anupam Chitra produced “Pyar Ki Pyas' in Cinemascope and colour. Guru Dutt was a member of the Guild.

First Talkie film without Dialogue
Taru Mukerji Production, Calcutta's “Ingeet” in 1961 was the first film of the talkie era which had no dialogue at all.

1964
First Film with only one actor
Sunil Dutt's “Yaadein” in 1964 was the first film in India which had only one actor in the fim.

1967
First 70mm Technicolour film
Pachhis “ Around The World” was the first Indian Film in 70mm and Technicolour with Stereophonic Sound in 1967.

History of film

History of film
The history of film is one of the most rapidly moving of any artistic or communications medium ever, as befits perhaps the first great mass medium of the modern era. Film has gone through a remarkable array of changes and developed a remarkable variety and sophistication in barely more than one hundred years of existence.

The birth of film
Technological ancestors
For centuries, humans had experimented with what would become the two key elements of cinema: the projection of images using light (such as with the camera obscura and the Magic lantern); and the illusion of motion created by exploiting the optical phenomenon called "persistence of vision" (such as with the zoetrope, introduced in the 1830s). The invention and spread of photography in the mid-19th century provided the key missing element.

Even from here, the "birth" of the movies was actually a gradual process of evolution with many blind alleys and crisscrossing paths. It involved a number of individuals in Europe, Britain and America who, from the 1860s on, worked on often similar inventions with varying degrees of success. Eadward Muybridge, Louis Le Prince and Ottomar Anschütz were among those who designed pioneering machines for projection of rapidly moving images. George Eastman, the American founder of Eastman Kodak, Hannibal Goodwin and William Friese Greene all worked on early prototypes of motion picture film.

Ready for an audience
In 1894, Thomas Edison introduced to the public the Kinetograph, the first practical moving picture camera, and the Kinetoscope, a hand-cranked, single-viewer, lighted box to display the resulting films. Kinetescope parlors were supplied with fifty-foot film snippets shot by Edison employee W.K. Dickson, the device's chief inventor, in their "Black Maria" studio. The invention was a widely imitated, international success.

Europe saw a cascade of rival devices. Rising above the pack was Auguste and Louis Lumière's cinematograph, a portable, three-in-one camera, developer/printer, and projector. In France in late 1895, the Lumière brothers began the first exhibitions of projected films before the paying public. They sparked the move from single-viewer units to projection (Cook, 1990), and quickly became Europe's leading producers of the new medium. Even Edison joined the burgeoning projection trend with the Vitascope within less than six months.

The movies of the time were seen mostly via temporary storefront spaces and travelling exhibitors or as acts in vaudeville programs. A film could be under a minute long and would usually present a single scene, authentic or staged, of everyday life, a public event, a sporting event or slapstick. There was little to no cinematic technique: no editing and usually no camera movement, and flat, stagey compositions. But the novelty of realistically moving photographs was enough for a motion picture industry to mushroom before the end of the century, in countries around the world.

The silent era
Inventors and producers had tried from the very beginnings of moving pictures to marry the image with synchronous sound, but no practical method was devised until the late 1920s. Thus, for the first thirty years of their history, movies were more or less silent, although accompanied by live musicians and sometimes sound effects, and with dialogue and narration presented in intertitles.

Early developments in technique, form and business
Paris stage magician Georges Méliès began shooting and exhibiting films in 1896. His stock-in-trade became films of fantasy and the bizarre, including A Trip to the Moon (1902), possibly the first movie to portray space travel. He pioneered many of the fundamental special effects techniques used in movies for most of the twentieth century, demonstrating the revolutionary point that film had unprecedented power to bend visible reality rather than just faithfully recording it (Cook, 1990). He also led the way in making multi-scene narratives as long as fifteen minutes the industry standard.

Edwin S. Porter, Edison's leading director in these years, pushed forward the sophistication of film editing in works like Life of an American Fireman and the first movie Western, The Great Train Robbery (both 1903). Porter arguably discovered that the basic unit of structure in a film is the shot, rather than the scene (the basic unit of structure in a play).

These developments helped establish the medium as more than a passing fad and encouraged the boom in nickelodeons, the first permanent movie theaters. There were 10,000 in the U.S. alone by 1908 (Cook, 1990). The previously anarchic industry increasingly became big business, which encouraged consolidation. The French Pathé Frères company achieved a dominant position worldwide through methods like control of key patents and ownership of theaters. In the U.S., Edison led the creation of the Motion Picture Patents Company, which achieved a brief, virtual monopoly there, using not just aggressive business tactics but sometimes violent intimidation against independent competitors (Parkinson, 1995).

Rise of the feature film and film as art
The standard length of a film remained one reel, or about ten to fifteen minutes, through the first decade of the century, partly based on producers' assumptions about the attention spans of their still largely working class audiences. But in Europe, multiple-reel period extravaganzas began to push the envelope of film length. With international box office successes like Queen Elizabeth (France, 1912), Quo Vadis? (Italy, 1913) and Cabiria (Italy, 1914), the multi-reel, or "feature", film began to replace the short as the cinema's central form.

No one was more important in cementing this trend than American director D.W. Griffith with his historical epics The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916). Unprecedented in scale, they also did much to fix the developing codes of editing and visual storytelling that remain the foundation of mainstream film grammar. The former film was also notable as perhaps the first to inspire widespread racial controversy.

Along with a boom in high-toned literary adaptations, these trends began to make the movies a respectable diversion for the middle class and gain them recognition as a genuine art form with a secure place in the emerging culture of the twentieth century.

Hollywood triumphant
Until this point, the cinemas of France and Italy had been the most globally popular and powerful. But the United States was already gaining quickly when World War I (1914-1918) caused a devastating interruption in the European film industries. The American industry, or "Hollywood," as it was becoming known after its new geographical center in California, gained the position it has held, more or less, ever since: movie factory for the world, exporting its product to most countries on earth and controlling the market in many of them.

By the 1920s, the U.S. reached what still stands as its era of greatest-ever output, producing an average of 800 feature films annually [1], or 82% of the global total (Eyman, 1997). The comedies of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, the swashbuckling adventures of Douglas Fairbanks and the romances of Clara Bow, to cite just a few examples, made these performers’ faces iconic on every continent. The Western visual norm that would become classical continuity editing was solidified and exported everywhere - although its adoption was slower in some non-Western countries without strong realist traditions in art and drama, such as Japan.

This explosion was vitally intertwined with the growth of the studio system and its greatest publicity tool, the star system, the engines of American film for decades to come and the models for many other movie industries. The studios’ efficient, top-down control over all stages of their product enabled a new and ever-growing level of lavish production and technical sophistication. At the same time, the system’s commercial regimentation and focus on glamorous escapism discouraged daring and ambition beyond a certain degree, a prime example being the brief directing career of Erich von Stroheim in the late teens and the ‘20s.

World film at the peak of the silents
But even now, the dominance of mainstream Hollywood entertainment wasn’t as strong as it would be, and alternatives were still widely seen and influential.

Germany was America’s strongest competitor. Its most distinctive contribution was the dark, hallucinatory worlds of German Expressionism, which advanced the power of anti-realistic presentation to put internal states of mind onscreen, as well as strongly influenced the emerging horror genre.

The newborn Soviet cinema was the most radically innovative. There, the craft of editing, especially, surged forward, going beyond its previous role in advancing a story. Sergei Eisenstein perfected the technique of so-called dialectical or intellectual montage, which strove to make non-linear, often violently clashing, images express ideas and provoke emotional and intellectual reactions in the viewer.
The cultural avant gardes of a number of countries worked with experimental films, mostly shorts, that completely abandoned linear narrative and embraced abstraction, pure aestheticism and the irrational subconscious, most famously in the work of Spanish surrealist Luis Buñuel. In some ways, in fact, this decade marked the first serious split between mainstream, "popular" film and "art" film.

Meanwhile, the first feature-length silent film was made in India by Dadasaheb Phalke, considered to be the Father of Indian Cinema. The film was the period piece Raja Harishchandra (1913), and it laid the foundation for a series of period films. By the next decade the output of Indian Cinema was an average of 27 films per year.
But even within the mainstream, refinement was rapid, bringing silent film to what would turn out to be its aesthetic summit. The possibilities of cinematography kept expanding as cameras became more mobile (thanks to new booms and dollies) and film stocks more sensitive and versatile. Screen acting came into its own as a craft, leaving behind its earlier theatrical exaggeration and achieving greater subtlety and psychological realism. As visual eloquence increased, reliance on intertitles decreased; the occasional film, such as F.W. Murnau’s The Last Laugh (Germany, 1926) even eschewed them altogether. Paradoxically, at about this point, the silent cinema came abruptly to an end.

The Sound Era
Experimentation with sound film technology, both for recording and playback, had been virtually constant throughout the silent era, but the twin problems of accurate synchronization and sufficient amplification had been daunting (Eyman, 1997). In 1926, Hollywood studio Warner Bros. introduced the "Vitaphone" system, producing short films of live entertainment acts and public figures and adding recorded sound effects and orchestral scores to some of its major features. The real turning point came in late 1927, when Warners released The Jazz Singer, which was mostly silent but contained the first synchronized dialogue (and singing) in a feature film. It was a gargantuan success, as were follow-ups like Warners' The Lights of New York (1928), the first all-synchronized-sound feature. The trend convinced the reluctant industry that "talking pictures", or "talkies," were the future.

Industry impact of sound
The change was remarkably swift. By the end of 1929, Hollywood was almost all-talkie, with several competing sound systems (soon to be standardized). Total changeover was slightly slower in the rest of the world, principally for economic reasons. Cultural reasons were also a factor in countries like China and Japan, where silents co-existed successfully with sound well into the 1930s, indeed producing what would be some of the most revered classics in those countries, like Wu Yonggang's The Goddess (China, 1934) and Yasujiro Ozu's I Was Born, But... (Japan, 1932). But even in Japan, a figure such as the benshi, the live narrator who was a major part of Japanese silent cinema, found his days were numbered.

Sound further tightened the grip of major studios in numerous countries: the vast expense of the transition overwhelmed smaller competitors, while the novelty of sound lured vastly larger audiences for those producers that remained. In the case of the U.S., some historians credit sound with saving the Hollywood studio system in the face of the Great Depression (Parkinson, 1995). Thus began what is now often called "The Golden Age of Hollywood," which refers roughly to the period beginning with the advent of sound until the late 1940s. The American cinema reached its peak of efficiently manufactured glamour and global appeal during this period. The top actors of the era are now thought of as the classic movie stars, such as Clark Gable, Katharine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart and the number one box office draw of the '30s, child performer Shirley Temple.

Sadly, the impact of sound in films also ruined the careers of many stars of the Silent Era, especially if the stars in question have bad speaking (or heavily accented) voices or their voices do not match their onscreen persona. This list of casualties include John Gilbert, Pola Negri, Norma Talmadge, Marie Prevost, Charles Farrell, Corinne Griffith, among others. Some, like Greta Garbo, became even bigger stars because of "talkies".

Creative impact of sound
Creatively, however, the lightning-paced transition was a difficult one, and in some ways, film briefly reverted to the conditions of its earliest days. The late '20s were full of static, stagey talkies as artists in front of and behind the camera struggled with the stringent limitations of the early sound equipment and their own uncertainty as to how to utilize the new medium. Stage performers, directors and writers flooded the cinema as producers sought personnel experienced in dialogue-based storytelling. Many major silent filmmakers and actors were unable to adjust and found their careers severely curtailed or even suddenly over.

This awkward period was fairly short-lived. 1929 was a watershed year: William Wellman with Chinatown Nights and The Man I Love, Rouben Mamoulian with Applause, Alfred Hitchcock with Blackmail (Britain's first sound feature), were among the directors to bring greater fluidity to talkies and experiment with the expressive use of sound (Eyman, 1997). In this, they both benefited from, and pushed further, technical advances in microphones and cameras, and capabilities for editing and post-synchronizing sound (rather than recording all sound directly at the time of filming).

Sound films emphasized and benefited different genres than silents did. Most obviously, the musical film was born; the first classic-style Hollywood musical was The Broadway Melody (1929) and the form would find its first major creator in choreographer/director Busby Berkeley (42nd Street, 1933, Dames, 1934). In France, avant-garde director René Clair made surreal use of song and dance in comedies like Under the Roofs of Paris (1930) and Le Million (1931). The trend thrived best in India, where the influence of the country's traditional song-and-dance drama made the musical the basic form of most sound movies (Cook, 1990); virtually unnoticed by the Western world for decades, this Indian popular cinema would nevertheless become the world's most prolific. (See also Bollywood.)

The rhythms of street-smart slang energized American gangster films like Little Caesar and Wellman's The Public Enemy (both 1931). Dialogue now took precedence over slapstick in Hollywood comedies: the fast-paced, witty banter of The Front Page (1931) or It Happened One Night (1935), the sexual double entrendres of Mae West (She Done Him Wrong, 1933) or the often subversively anarchic nonsense talk of the Marx Brothers (Duck Soup, 1933).

The 1940s: the war and post-war years
The onset of US involvement in WWII brought a proliferation of movies as both patriotism and propaganda. American propaganda movies included Desperate Journey, Mrs Miniver, Forever and a Day and Objective Burma. Notable American films from the war years include the anti-Nazi Watch on the Rhine (1943), scripted by Dashiell Hammett; Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Hitchcock's direction of a script by Thornton Wilder; the George M. Cohan biopic, Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), starring James Cagney, and the immensely popular Casablanca, with Humphrey Bogart. Bogart would star in 36 films between 1934 and 1942 including John Huston's The Maltese Falcon, (1941).

The need for wartime propaganda also saw a renaissance in the film industry in Britain, with realistic war dramas like Forty-Ninth Parallel (1941), Went the Day Well? (1942), The Way Ahead (1944) and Noel Coward and David Lean's celebrated naval film In Which We Serve in 1942, which won a special Academy Award. These existed alongside more flamboyant films like Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), A Canterbury Tale (1944) and A Matter of Life and Death (1946), as well as Laurence Olivier's 1944 film Henry V, based on the Shakespearean history Henry V.

The strictures of wartime also brought an interest in more fantastical subjects. These included Britain's Gainsborough melodramas (including The Man in Grey and The Wicked Lady), and films like Here Comes Mr Jordan, Heaven Can Wait, I Married a Witch and Blithe Spirit. Val Lewton also produced a series of atmospheric and influential low budget horror films, some of the more famous examples being Cat People, Isle of the Dead and The Body Snatcher. The decade probably also saw the so-called "women's pictures," such as Now, Voyager, Random Harvest and Mildred Pierce at the peak of their popularity.

1946 saw RKO Radio releasing It's a Wonderful Life directed by Frank Capra. Soldiers returning from the war would provide the inspiration for films like The Best Years of Our Lives, and many of those in the film industry had served in some capacity during the war. Samuel Fuller's experiences in WWII would influence his largely autobiographical films of later decades such as The Big Red One. The Actor's Studio was founded in October 1947 by Elia Kazan, Robert Lewis, and Cheryl Crawford, and the same year Oskar Fischinger filmed Motion Painting No. 1.

In 1943, Ossessione was screened in Italy, marking the beginning of the Italian neorealist movement. Major films to come out of the movement in the forties included Bicycle Thieves, Rome: Open City, and La Terra Trema. In 1952 Umberto D was released, usually considered the last film of the movement.

In the late forties, in Britain, Ealing Studios embarked on their series of celebrated comedies, including Whisky Galore, Passport to Pimlico, Kind Hearts and Coronets and The Man in the White Suit, and Carol Reed directed his influential thrillers Odd Man Out, The Fallen Idol and The Third Man. David Lean was also rapidly becoming a force in world cinema with Brief Encounter and his Dickens adaptations Great Expectations and Oliver Twist, and Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger would reach the peak of their creative partnership with films like Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes.

The 1950s
The House Committee on Un-American Activities investigated Hollywood in the early 1950's. Protested by the Hollywood Ten before the committee, the hearings resulted in the blacklisting of many actors, writers and directors, including Chayefsky, Charlie Chaplin, and Dalton Trumbo, and many of these fled to Europe, especially Britain.

The cold war era zeitgeist translated into a paranoia manifested in themes such as invading armies of evil aliens, (Invasion of the Body Snatchers); and communist fifth columnists, (The Manchurian Candidate).

In the post-war years Hollywood also faced another threat. Living rooms were beginning to be invaded by television, and the increasing popularity of the medium meant that some movie theatres would go bankrupt and close. The demise of the "studio system" spurred the self-commentary of films like Sunset Boulevard (1950) and The Bad and the Beautiful (1952).

Distressed by the increasing number of closed theatres, studios and companies would find new and innovative ways to bring audiences back. These included attempts to literally widen their appeal with new screen formats. CinemaScope, which would remain a 20th Century Fox distinction until 1967, was announced with 1953's The Robe. VistaVision, Cinerama, boasted a "bigger is better" approach to marketing movies to a shrinking US audience. This lead to the re-emergence of the epic film to take advantage of the new big screen formats. Some of the most successful examples of these Biblical and historical spectaculars include The Ten Commandments (1956), The Vikings (1958), Ben-Hur (1959), Spartacus (1960) and El Cid (1961).

Gimmicks also proliferated to lure in audiences. The magic of 3-D film would last for only two years, 1952-1954, and helped sell The Creature From The Black Lagoon. Producer William Castle would tout films featuring "Emergo" "Percepto", the first of a long line of gimmicks that would remain popular marketing tools for Castle and others throughout the 1960s.

Brown v. Board of Education (1954) set the stage for The Blackboard Jungle (1955), and some notable early TV productions like Paddy Chayefsky's Marty and Reginald Rose's Twelve Angry Men would be turned into critically acclaimed films.
Disney's Sleeping Beauty was released on January 29, 1959 by Buena Vista Distribution after nearly a decade in production.

Across the globe, the 1950s marked the golden era of Indian Cinema with more than 200 films being made. Indian films also gained world recognition through films like Pather Panchali (1955), from critically acclaimed Academy Award winning director Satyajit Ray.

The 'New Hollywood' or Post-classical cinema
'The New Hollywood' and 'post-classical cinema' are terms used to describe the period following the decline of the studio system in the 50s and 60s and the end of the production code. It is defined by a greater tendency to dramatize such things as sexuality and violence, and by the rising importance of blockbuster movies.
'Post-classical cinema' is a term used to describe the changing methods of storytelling in the New Hollywood. It has been argued that new approaches to drama and characterization played upon audience expectations acquired in the classical/Golden Age period: chronology may be scrambled, storylines may feature "twist endings", and lines between the antagonist and protagonist may be blurred. The roots of post-classical storytelling may be seen in film noir, in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), and in Hitchcock's storyline-shattering Psycho.

The 1960s
The 1960s saw the increasing decline of the studio system in Hollywood. Many films were now being made on location in other countries, or using studio facilities abroad, such as Pinewood in England and Cinecittà in Rome. Hollywood movies were still largely aimed at big family audiences, and it was often the more old-fashioned films that produced the studios' biggest successes. Productions like Mary Poppins (1964), My Fair Lady (1964) and The Sound of Music (1965) were among the biggest money-makers of the decade, but American films were losing the creative impetus to British and European film makers. The growth in independent producers and production companies, and the increase in the power of individual actors also contributed to the decline in traditional Hollywood studio production.

There was also an increasing awareness of foreign language cinema in this period. The late 1950s and 1960s saw the emergence of the French New Wave with films like Les quatre cents coups and Jules et Jim from directors such as François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard. Italian films like Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita, and the stark dramas of Sweden's Ingmar Bergman were also making an impact outside their home countries.

In Britain the "Free Cinema" of Lindsay Anderson, Tony Richardson and others lead to a group of realistic and ground-breaking dramas including Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, A Kind of Loving and This Sporting Life. Other British films such as Repulsion, Darling, Alfie, Blow-up and Georgy Girl (all in 1965-1966) helped to break taboos around sex and nudity on screen, while the casual sex and violence of the James Bond films, beginning with Dr. No in 1962 would turn the series into a worldwide phenomenon.

Africans had been denied the right to make movies for decades. In the sixties, however Ousmane Sembène produced several French- and Wolof-language films became the 'father' of African Cinema.

In Latin America the dominance of the Hollywood model was challenged by many film makers. Fernando Solanas and Octavio Gettino called for a politically engaged Third Cinema in contrast to Hollywood and the european auteur cinema.

In documentary film the sixties saw the blossoming of Direct Cinema, an observational style of film making as well as the advent of more overtly partisan films like The year of the pig about the Vietnam War by Emile de Antonio.
By the late 1960s however, Hollywood was beginning to claw back some of the creative impetus with films like Bonnie and Clyde (1967), The Graduate (1967), Midnight Cowboy (1969), and The Wild Bunch (1969). Bonnie and Clyde is often seen as the beginning of the New Hollywood.

The 1970s
The 1970s saw the emergence of a new generation of film school-trained American film makers, like Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg and Brian de Palma. This coincided with the increasing popularity of the auteur theory in film literature and the media, a development which gave these directors far greater control over their projects than would have been possible in earlier eras. This lead to some enormous critical and commercial successes, like Coppola's The Godfather films, Spielberg's Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind and George Lucas's Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. It also, however, lead to some inevitable failures, including Peter Bogdanovich's At Long Last Love and Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate. The latter almost single-handledly brought down backer United Artists following its release in 1980.

The phenomenal success of Jaws and Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope in particular, lead to the rise of the modern blockbuster, with the Hollywood studios increasingly intent on producing a smaller number of very high budget films with massive marketing and promotional backing. This development has continued to the present day.
The mid-1970s had also seen a big increase in adult cinemas and the legal production of hardcore pornographic films in the U.S. Deep Throat and it's star Linda Lovelace became something of a phenomenon and lead to a spate of similar sex films throughout the decade. These would finally die out with the introduction of VCR technology in the 1980s.

The early '70s also alerted English language audiences to the new West German cinema, with Werner Herzog, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Wim Wenders among its leading exponents.

The end of the decade saw the first major international interest in Australian cinema. Peter Weir's films Picnic at Hanging Rock and The Last Wave and Fred Schepisi's The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith gained critical acclaim, while George Miller's violent futuristic actioner Mad Max was a substantial hit in 1979 and marked the beginning of Australian attempts to target the international market.

The '80s: sequels, blockbusters and videotape
The shift that occurred in the 1980s from seeing movies in a theater to watching videos on a VCR, is a move close to the original concepts of Thomas Edison. In the early part of that decade, the movie studios tried legal action to ban home ownership of VCRs as a violation of copyright, which proved unsuccessful. That proved most fortunate, however, as the sale and rental of their movies on home video became a significant source of revenue for the movie companies. THX Ltd, a division of Lucasfilm launched in 1982. [2] Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull (1980); After Hours (1985); The King of Comedy (1983).

The Digital Age
After the decade of the 1970s helped define the blockbuster motion picture, the way Hollywood released its films changed. Now films, for the most part, would premiere in an even wider number of theatres, although, to this day, some movies still premiere using the route of the limited/roadshow release system. Until this new "Digital Age", the primary way for audiences to see their favorite films again and again was to re-release films. But the medium of home video would change all of this.

Among the terms most associated with this new era include:
• George Lucas: The Star Wars films
• Industrial Light and Magic
• Steven Spielberg: Jaws

The 1990s: technical advances
The history of film and video distributed online began in the year 1994 with the first public showing of Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. Influence of Comics. Smoke, 1995. In the 1990s, cinema began the process of making another transition, from physical film stock to digital cinema technology. Pixar, The Matrix. Meanwhile, in the home video realm, the DVD would become the new standard for watching movies after their standard theatrical releases.

The new millennium
Peter Greenaway's The Tulse Luper Suitcases takes advantage of new media and high definition technology. Interactivity of PlayStation, &, Grand Theft Auto relationship w/cinema: actors, soundtrack, narrative structure. The Superhero film also began to fully emerge in prominence and more consistent artistic sophistication, notably with the huge success of X-Men starting the trend. The documentary film also rises as a potently commercial genre. Faster edits. home theatre. Future: Problems of digital distribution to be overcome -- higher compression, cheaper technology. Content security. Expiration of copyrights, enforcing copyright.

The underground
Alongside the Hollywood tradition, there has also been an underground film tradition of low budget, often self-produced works created outside of the studio system and without the involvement of labor unions. Student films such as Dan O'Bannon and John Carpenter's Dark Star should be included in this category, but are also considered Independent film (see main article and addendum).

Experimental film that used cinema as a vehicle of fine art had been produced since the 1940s, for example the work of Harry Everett Smith and Maya Deren, but social movements of the 1960s produced a larger and more receptive audience for this type of work and more contributors to the field, such as Kenneth Anger. Pornographic movies also avoided union involvement and appealed to an alternative, underground, audience. Melvin Van Peebles's Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song is an example of an independently created, underground movie that used post-classical plot devices -- Van Peebles touted this film as pornography project during its production to avoid complications with the Screen Actor's Guild.

Addendum
"Independent film" may be defined as any motion picture financed and produced without the aid of a movie studio. These works have contributed to the history of cinema from the early days, and will continue to do so. Notable independent flmmakers include a plethora of diverse auteurs such as D. W. Griffith, Maya Deren, Orson Welles, Russ Meyer, John Sayles, Jim Jarmusch, John Waters, and Roger Corman.

References
Print
• Acker, Ally . Reel Women: Pioneers of the Cinema, 1896 to the Present. London: B.T. Batsford, 1991.
• Basten, Fred E. Glorious Technicolor: The Movies' Magic Rainbow. AS Barnes & Company, 1980.
• Cook, David A. A History of Narrative Film, 2nd edition. New York: W.W. Norton, 1990. ISBN 0-393-95553-2
• Eisner, Lotte H. The Haunted Screen: Expressionism in the German Cinema and the Influence of Max Reinhardt. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1965.
• Eyman, Scott. The Speed of Sound: Hollywood and the Talkie Revolution, 1926-1930. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997. ISBN 0-684-81162-6
• King, Geoff. New Hollywood Cinema: An Introduction. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.
• Merritt, Greg. Celluloid Mavericks: A History of American Independent Film. Thunder's Mouth Press, 2001.
• Nowell-Smith, Geoffrey, ed. The Oxford History of World Cinema. Oxford University Press, 1999.
• Parkinson, David. History of Film. New York: Thames & Hudson, 1995. ISBN 0-500-20277-X
• Rocchio, Vincent F. Reel Racism. Confronting Hollywood's Construction of Afro-American Culture. Westview Press, 2000.
• Schrader, Paul. "Notes on Film Noir." Film Comment, 1984.
• Thackway, Melissa. Africa shoots back: Alternative perspectives in sub-saharan francophone african film. Indiana University Press, 2003.
• Unterburger, Amy L. The St. James Women Filmmakers Encyclopedia: Women on the Other Side of the Camera. Visible Ink Press, 1999.
Digital video
• Glorious Technicolor; directed by Peter Jones. Based on the book (above); written by Basten & Jones. Documentary, (1998).

African cinema

The term African cinema usually refers to the film production in countries south of the Sahara since they gained formal independence, which for many countries happened in the 1960s. Some of the countries which belong geographically to Africa, especially Egypt had devolved a national film industry much earlier. Often African Cinema also includes African directors living in the Diaspora.

Film in Africa during the colonial era
Africa was and still is the continent of projections. Like for many African writers, e.g. Chinua Achebe, repudiating racist stereotypes and images about Africa and Africans the colonizers had fabricated and disseminated was an important motivation for many African film makers. In Hollywood movies shot in the colonial era Africa is only scenery for white actors, a background reduced to landscapes and a few 'primitives' who inevitably are dangerous and wild or servants satisfied with their lot. These demeaning representations are a continuation of the 'Völkerschauen'. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries noneuropeans were exposed in European zoos like animals.

In the French colonies film making was formally forbidden to Africans. The first francophone african film, L’Afrique sur Seine by Paulin Soumanou Vieyra, was therefore shot in Paris in 1955.

Before independence only a few anticolonial films like Les statues meurent aussi by Chris Marker and Alain Resnais about European robbery of African art, which was forbidden by the French for 10 years , or Afrique 50 by René Vauthier about anticolonial riots in Ivory Coast and in Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso) could be produced.

Many of the ethnographic films produced in the colonial era by Jean Rouch and others where rejected by African film makers because (at least in their view) they distorted African realities.

60s and 70s
The first African film to win international recognition was Ousmane Sembènes La Noire de.. also known as Black Girl. It showed the despair of an African woman who has to work as a maid in France. The writer Sembene had turned to cinema to reach a wider audience. He is still considered to be the 'father' of African Cinema. Sembènes native country Senegal continued to be the most important place of production for more then a decade.

By creating the all African film festival FESPACO in Burkina Fasoin 1969 African film had created its own forum. It takes place every two years in alternation with the film festival Carthago in (Tunisia).

Med Hondo's O soleil O, shot in 1969, was immediately recognized. Politically not less engaged then Sembène, he chose a more unquiet filmic language to show what it means to be a stranger in France having the 'wrong' color.

Djibril Diop Mambéty's sophisticated comedy Touki Bouki (1973) about a young couple in Dakar which at all costs wants to make a trip to Paris is still considered one of the best african films ever made.

Conditions of Production and Reception
African film makers have a difficult access to their African audiences. The commercial cinemas often have to book blindly and show primarily Hollywood or Bollywood films. Where African audiences do have access to African films, e.g. at the Pan African film festival in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), they usually show a lively interest in the films. Most African film makers still rely heavily on European institutions for financing and producing their films. A commercially viable video production has been set up in Nigeria.

The way African film makers see themselves and their mission
The political approach of African film makers is clearly evident in the Charte du cinéaste africain [Charta of the African cinéaste] which the union of African film makers FEPACI adopted in Algiers in 1975.

The film makers start by recalling the neocolonial condition of African societies. "The situation contemporary African societies live in is one in which they are dominated on several levels: politically, economically and culturally." In this situation African filmmakers saw it as their social responsibility to further the growth of consciousness of African people. They stressed their solidarity with progressive filmmakers in other parts of the world. African cinema is often seen a part of Third Cinema.

In the words of Souleymane Cissé: "African filmmakers' first task is to show that people here are human beings and to help people discover the African values that can be of service to others. The following generation will branch out into other aspects of film. Our duty is to make people understand that white people have lied through their images." (Thackway, p. 39)

Some African filmmakers, e.g. Ousmane Sembène, try to give back African history to African people by remembering the resistance to European and Islamic domination.

The role of the African film maker is often compared to traditional Griots. Like them their task is to express and reflect communal experiences. Patterns of African oral literature often recur in African films. African film has also been influenced by traditions from other continents such as Italian neorealism, Brazilian Cinema Novo and the theatre of Bertolt Brecht.

Women Directors
Ethnologist and filmmaker Safi Faye was the first African women film director to gain international recognition.

In 1972 Sarah Maldoror had shot her film Sambizanga about the liberation struggle in Angola. Surviving women of this war are the subject of the Documentary Les oubliées[The forgotten], made by Anne-Laure Folly twenty years later.

More recent developments
Return to the source films such as Souleyman Cissé's Yeleen (Mali 1987) and Cheick Omour Sissoko, Guimba (Mali 1995) were well received in the west. Some critics criticized the filmmakers for adapting to the egotistic tastes of western audiences

Many films of the 90s, e.g. Quartier Mozart by Jean-Pierre Bekolo (Cameroon 1992) are situated in the globalized African metropolis.

Key Topics
• Memory and History
• Experiences of exile and emigration
• The dominating class
• Is there an African bourgeoisie?
• Women
• Children
• The city and the countryside

Directors by country
• Benin: Jean Odoutan - Idrissa Ouedrago
• Burkina Faso: Gaston J-M Kaboré - Dani Kouyaté - Fanta Régina Nacro - Orissa Touré - Pierre Yameogo
• Cameroon: Jean-Pierre Bekolo - Bassek Ba Kobhio - Jean Pierre Dikongue- Pipa - Jean-Marie Teno - François Woukoache
• Chad: Issa Serge Coelo - Mahamat Saleh Haroun
• Côte d'Ivoire: Henri Duparc - Desiré Ecaré - Fadika Kramo Lancine - Gnoan Roger M'Bala - Jacques Trabi
• DRC: Balufu Bakupa-Kanyinda - Joseph Kumbela - Zeka Laplaine
• Ethiopia: Haile Gerima
• Guinea: David Achkar - Gahité Fofana
• Mali: Abdoulaye Ascofare - Adamo Drabo - Souleymane Cissé - Cheick Oumar Sissoko
• Mauritania: Med Hondo - Abderrahmane Sissako - Sidney Sokhana
• Niger: Oumarou Ganda
• Nigeria Ola Balogun - Eddie Ugboma - Amaka Igwe - Zeb Ejiro - Lola Fani-Kayode - Bayo Awala - Izu Ojukwu - Greg Fiberesima

• Senegal: Ben Diogaye Beye - Clarence Delgado - Ahmadou Diallo - Safi Faye - Djibril Diop Mambéty - Bouna Medoune Seye - Abacar Samb Makbaram - Ousmane Sembène - Moussa Sene Absa Paulin Soumarou Vieyra - Moussa Touré - Mansour Sora Wade
• Togo: Anne Laure Folly

Bibliography
• Fernando E. Solanas, Octavio Getino, "Towards a Third Cinema" in: Bill Nichols (ed.), Movies and Methods. An Anthology, University of California Press 1976, pp. 44-64
• Nwachukwu Frank Ukadike, Black African Cinema University of California Press 1994
• Melissa Thackway, Africa Shoots Back: Alternative Perspectives in Sub-Saharan Francophone African Film, Indiana University Press 2003, Includes a comprehensive bibliography and a select filmografy
• Africultures
• CinémAction N° 106 first trimestre 2003: Cinémas africains, une oasis dans le désert?
• Écrans d’Afriques (1992-1998) - French and English