May 3rd 1913, Coronation Cinema, Bombay... The release of Dadasaheb Phalke's 'Raja Harishchandra', India's first fully indigenous silent feature film. This heralded the birth of the Indian film industry.
The journey from then on has been long, but eventful and has witnessed classics like 'Pather Panchali', 'Mughal-E-Azam', 'Lagaan, which was nominated by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the Oscar for the Best Foreign Language Film 'Devdas' which was screened at the Cannes Film Festival and the eternal masterpiece 'Sholay' continue to inspire the world. The new breed of directors like Karan Johar, Aditya Chopra, Farhan Akhtar, Rituparno Ghosh, Ashutosh Gowarikar represent the new wave of Indian Cinema.
The world remembers and honours wizards like Satyajit Ray, who was awarded the Oscar for Lifetime Achievement; Shekhar Kapur who's 'Elizabeth' shot to global fame and won seven Oscar nominations; Amitabh Bachchan who was named 'Superstar of the Millennium' by the BBC.
Indian Cinema is on a roll - 'Lagaan' was nominated for the Oscars, 'Devdas' was screened at Cannes, various films have been screened at the Locarno Film Festival and the Moscow International Film Festival. Retrospectives of prominent artistes' works have been held at the Deauville Film Festival and the Marrakech Film Festival. Movies like 'Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham' have been featured in the UK Top Ten. The Selfridges Festival in London focused on Indian Cinema.
The number of movies produced in India is the largest in the world. Approximately twenty-three million Indians go to see a film every day. According to a survey done by Ernst & Young, more than 70% of the industry believed that the film business is expected to grow by more than 15%* in the next three years. Going forward, with improvement in distribution, exhibition infrastructure, the advent of digital cinema and better exploitation of films, the industry is likely to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 18% to gross $ 2,244 mn by 2008.*
The overseas market has become increasingly lucrative for Indian producers with most films realizing 15-20% of their income from overseas.
http://iifa.com/website/cntnt/theindianfilmindustry.htm
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