International Conference on Regional Cinema of India

Home , 100 Crore Club, Alam Ara, Cinema of India, Raja Harishchandra

H-Announce INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON REGIONAL CINEMA OF INDIA

Announcement published by DR MANISHKUMAR MISHRA on Monday, April 15, 2019 Type: Conference Date: September 20, 2019 to September 21, 2019 Location: India Subject Fields: Cultural History / Studies, Digital Humanities, Film and Film History, Humanities, Literature

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Regional Cinema Of India / भारत का क्षेत्रीय सिनेमा

Like many other marvels of science and technology, cinema came to India from the West. After railway and postal service, cinema became the major unifying factor that bound together the people of different languages, faiths, traditions and cultures living across the length and breadth of Indian subcontinent. The first Indian cinema Raja Harishchandra produced by Dadasaheb Phalke in 1913 was a silent movie based on Indian mythology. Its lack of sound was a boon in disguise as the visual language of cinema transcended the barriers of spoken language and built the bridges of understanding across India. For the next two decades, mythological films dominated the Indian cinema. In 1931 the first Indian talkie Alam Ara was released which changed the Indian film industry forever. With sound came the music and it further popularized cinema among Indian public. However, now language too became a significant factor in the success of a film. The literary masterpieces in various languages such as Devdas (1935) in Bengali were adapted to the silver screen enriching cinema with mesmerizing dialogues and enchanting songs. It also widened the scope of Indian cinema as now films started to be made in various languages, prominent among them being Hindi, Bengali, Marathi and Tamil. Later on other Indian languages too produced their own films focusing on their characteristic literary and cultural heritage, social issues and local colours. Thus along with the mainstream Hindi cinema called Bollywood, regional cinema in various Indian languages beautified the rainbow of Indian cinema with various distinctive colours.

Today India tops the world in the total number of films made per year. Apart from the blockbuster Bollywood films belonging to the ‘100 Crore Club’, the small budget regional films too make a good business in their respective areas. The advancement of digital technology plus the availability of open platforms like YouTube on internet have given much scope to the local talent and thereby has eliminated the eliticism in cinema. Thus today regional Indian cinema has become truly eclectic and democratic reflecting joys and sorrows, aspirations and frustrations of millions of people belonging to the different walks of life. However, a very little academic attention is paid to these records of life.

Citation: DR MANISHKUMAR MISHRA. INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON REGIONAL CINEMA OF INDIA . H-Announce. 04-15-2019. https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/4009358/international-conference-regional-cinema-india Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 1 H-Announce

This indifference of academia may push these first-hand subaltern experiences to the obliviousness which if preserved can provide significant primary data for research on India in humanities and social sciences in future. So the present attempt is aimed at documentation of various aspects of regional Indian cinema during the last 100 odd years.

The research papers are invited on the following topics:

History of regional cinema in various Indian languages Major themes explored in regional cinema in various languages Major genres used in regional cinema in various languages Superstars of regional Indian cinema (like Rajinikanth in Tollywood) Important film makers in various languages Adaptation of regional language literature to the films (like Shyam chi Aai) Use of folk art forms in regional Indian cinema (like Tamaashaa in Marathi cinema) Music in regional Indian cinema Dance and choreography in regional Indian cinema Distinctive acting styles in regional Indian cinema Production techniques used in regional Indian cinema Popularity of regional Indian cinema Challenges faced by regional Indian cinema Study of blockbuster regional films (like Sairaat in Marathi) Study of parallel/ art films in regional languages (like Kaadu in Kannada) Remakes of English or Hindi or foreign language films in regional Indian languages Remakes of regional Indian cinema in other languages including Hindi (such as Bodyguard) Impact of cable TV, internet and social media on regional cinema Business models of regional Indian cinema

Contact Info:

Dr. Manish kumar Mishra [email protected]

Contact Email: [email protected] URL: http://www.manishkumarmishra.com/