Bollywood, one of the largest film production centres in the world, turns hundred years in 2012. To mark this historic occasion, www.indiavideo.org has launched a year-long celebration which will take the viewers to the key moments in the momentous journey of Hindi Cinema. The project is supported by Culture Shoppe, an online cultural gift shop, and Mulamoottil Eye Hospital, a leading super specialty eye hospital.
The special centenary gallery on the website and its YouTube channel www.youtube.com/indiavideodotorghas already become a big hit among Bollywood fans spread across the world.
As part of the centenary fete, www.indiavideo.org is featuring 365 movies carefully chosen to represent the history of Bollywood. Here you could watch some all-time hit movies, some trend setters in story telling and techniques, movies through which some ordinary men and women rose to stardom and many more.
Clippings of the selected movies are presented along with a brief talk on the specialties and historical aspects of the film. The nearly two-minute movie will have the best moments in a film.
The movies were chosen by researcher and columnist Vijay Kumar Balakrishnan who has been exploring Bollywood for the past 40 years. He is also an avid collector of Bollywood posters, gramophone records, song books, vintage films etc. Eminent Kathak dancer and social activist Pali Chandra is the anchor.
“From Dadasaheb Phalke, V Shantaram, Himanshu Rai, Vijay Bhatt, Fateh Lal, Sohrab Modi, Damle, Bimal Roy, Mehboob Khan, Raj Kapoor to G P Sippy, Mahesh Bhatt, Shekhar Kapur, Mira Nair, Aamir Khan, Ram Gopal Varma and Karan Johar, the gallery will introduce personalities who influenced the industry from time to time,” says Vijay Kumar Balakrishnan. “ It has rare and exclusive visuals of old films like Raja Harishchandra, Ayodhya ka Raja, Pukar, Kapal Kundala, Izzat, Doctor, Maya Machindra and the like,” he adds.
The Bollywood centenary gallery of www.indiavideo.org is perhaps the first of its kind online project to preserve the history of a film genre. Visitors are offered free access to the gallery which is a useful resource for academicians and researchers.
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