Kohinoor's first film, Sati Parvati (1920), which also depicted Gujarati culture, was directed by Vishnupant Divekar and featured Prabha, an actress from Rajkot, in the lead role of Parvati.

Sampat later founded the Kohinoor Film Company. Kach-Devyani (1920), directed by Patankar, featured garba dancing, marking the first appearance of Gujarati culture in films. Raja Sriyal was the company's first film, but it was not released due to a defective print. He later established Patankar Friends & Company with S. He bought a projector and held film shows. ĭwarkadas Sampat, an early Gujarati film producer, began his involvement with the film industry in Rajkot. The silent film Narsinh Mehta (1920), produced by Oriental, featured the Gujarati song ' Vaishnav Jan To', which was sung by the audience and musicians in cinema halls with relevant scenes on screen. Suchet Singh established the Oriental Film Manufacturing Company of Bombay with the help of Hajimahamad Allarakha, an editor of the popular Gujarati magazine Visami Sadi, in 1919. This full-length (132 minutes, 12,000 feet (3,700 m)) film was produced by Elphinstone Bioscope Company of Calcutta (now Kolkata in West Bengal), and is considered Bengali. The silent film Bilwamangal (also called Bhagat Soordas, 1919) was directed by Rustomji Dhotiwala, a Parsi Gujarati, based on a story by Gujarati writer Champshi Udeshi. Between 19 there were twenty leading film company and studios owned by Gujaratis-mostly in Bombay (now Mumbai)-and at least forty-four leading Gujarati directors. The state government announced a policy of incentives in 2016.Ĭinema show times written in typical Gujarati style Įven before the advent of talkies there were several silent films closely related to the Gujarati people and their culture, and many directors, producers and actors who were Gujarati and Parsi. The industry has been partially revived in the 2010s due first to rural demand, and later to an influx of new technology and urban subjects in films. The Gujarat state government announced a tax exemption again in 2005 which lasted until 2017. In the 1970s, the Government of Gujarat announced a tax exemption and subsidies which resulted in an increase in the number of films, but the quality declined.Īfter flourishing through the 1960s–1980s, the industry saw a decline through 2000 when the number of new films dropped below twenty. In the 1950s–1960s, the trend continued with the addition of films on literary works. There was a spurt in film production in the 1940s focused on saint, sati or dacoit stories as well as mythology and folktales. Until the independence of India in 1947, only twelve Gujarati films were produced. The language-associated industry dates back to 1932, when the first Gujarati talkie, Narsinh Mehta, was released. It is one of the major regional and vernacular film industries of the cinema of India, having produced more than one thousand films since its inception.ĭuring the silent film era, many individuals in the industry were Gujaratis. Gujarati cinema, also known as Gollywood or Dhollywood, is the Gujarati language film industry. Narsinh Mehta (1932) was the first full-length Gujarati talkie.

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