Darshana Sreedhar
Centenary Celebrations of India n Cinema in Chennai
The year 2013 has been etched in memory as special on many counts. It has been 100 years since the release of Dadasaheb Phalke’s Raja Harishchandra, the first Indian silent film, premiered on 21st April, 1913 at the Olympia Theatre, Grant Road for a selective audience, and later at the Coronation Cinemascope in Bombay where it became a runaway
success.

The year 2013 being the centenary year of Indian cinema, triggered off various modes of revisiting the history of cinema. As seen in the events organized by the Department of Information and Broadcasting Ministry, this could be to mark the 100th year of Indian Cinema, including the Centenary Film Festival in April 2013 in New Delhi which had a selection of classic and contemporary Indian films by directors like Bimal Roy, Guru Dutt, Shyam Benegal, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Girish Kasaravalli, Nandita Das and Jahnu Barua among others. Another notable event was the International conference on Indian cinema, “The IndianCinema Century: Film, Technology and Contemporary” organized by the Department of Cinema Studies, School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University in January 2013 bringing together scholars from various parts of the globe who work in Indian cinema. In a way, this marked the beginning of the series of events and remembrances, including the recent Special issue brought out by Frontline in October titled “100: Celebrating Indian Cinema’s Century”. The centenary celebrations of Indian cinema by the South Indian Film Chamber of
Commerce (SIFCC) in Chennai also became a stark reminder of how cinema and politics is an inextricable realitiy in Tamil Nadu, says Darshana Sreedhar