The Secret History of Indian Cinema
This programme presents revelatory and rare films from two founding periods of Indian cinema. D.G. Phalke’s fantastic films, like those of George Méliès in France, are the foundations of Indian cinema. Phalke, the “father of Indian cinema,” gave magical movement to Indian mythology when he produced Raja Harishchandra the first ever Indian film in 1913. Inventive and playful, these films merge folk theatre with epic literature, myth with modernity. Showing with these are films produced under the government’s ‘Films Division’. Founded in 1948, with the aim of documenting independent India, these works reflect the processes of post-colonial nation building. Similar to the British GPO Film Unit, filmmakers were given free reign in the 60s and 70s to explore the possibilities of cinema from animation and impressionistic documentary to subversive collages.
Films
- Raja Harishchandra
Director: D.G. Phalke; India; 1913; 20min; Silent; B&W
Premiered on April 21, 1913, in Mumbai, Phalke’s first full length feature stars a man named Salunke as the “Leading Lady“, since women didn’t get to act in movies at the time. Only one reel survives of the king who suffers to prove his commitment to truth.
- Lanka Aflame (Lanka Dahan)
Director: D.G. Phalke; India; 1917; 9min; Silent; B&W
A mythological retelling of the familiar Ramayana story in which Rama’s wife Sita is abducted by Ravana, the demon king of Lanka, and then rescued by Rama and his army of men, monkeys and bears. The climax sees the brave monkey god Hanuman set the island of Lanka afire with his burning tail.
- The Birth Of Shri Krishna (Shri Krishna Janam)
Director: D.G. Phalke; India; 1918; 6min; Silent; B&W
This short has spectacular trick effects for the time. It depicts an infant Krishna (played by Phalke’s daughter Mandakini), rising out of the water balanced on the head of the demon snake Kaliya, and also Krishna’s uncle Kamsa, dreaming that his head, magically severed, rises and descends from his shoulders.
- Bridging The Ocean (Setu Bandhan)
Director: D.G. Phalke; India; 1932; 9min; Silent; B&W
Lord Rama and his army of apes and other creatures attempt to cross the sea to reach Lanka – the domain of Ravana – to rescue the abducted Sita. To do so a bridge of pebbles and stones is built by squirrels, and Sita is rescued. Made at the end of the silent period this film is a bridge between the silent and the talkie era.
- And I Make Short Films
Director: S.N.S Sastry; India; 1968; 16min; B&W
An impressionistic and anarchic portrayal of a short filmmaker. Dynamic editing mixes a range of footage from cartoons to documentaries, and is accompanied by the bitter, humorous and satirical views of the filmmaker.
- Trip
Director: Pramod Pati; India; 1970; 4min; B&W
A film on Bombay, using pixilation and an abstract soundtrack to depict the evanescence of urban daily life. The quintessential Indian experimental “city film.”
- Child On A Chess Board
Director: Vijay B Chandra; India; 1979; 8min; B&W
This abstract narrative, dealing with the parallel themes of “Man with all knowledge” and “Child the father of man”, is a psycho-social exploration of nationhood, industrial progress and scientific development, as seen through the eyes of a child.
- Explorer
Director: Pramod Pati; India; 1968; 8min; B&W
A psychedelic trip through ‘60’s youth culture in India. An analysis of science, technology and modernity with abstract references to symbols, faces and moods.