H.S. Bhatavdekar – First Filmmaker To Start Motion Picture In India
Indian Film History (IFH) as the name suggests is committed to enlightening readers about the golden History of Indian cinema. Hence in our New Series Centenary of Indian Cinema IFH takes you down memory lane and enhances your knowledge of Indian films since the birth of Indian cinema. Focus is on the technical changes that have taken Indian cinema to dizzy heights in International cinema from the silent era to the digital cinema.
Lumière Brothers of France are truly the Master-Mind behind the origin of Cinema. They made their First Film in 1895. In 1896, the brothers came to India and conducted a Film show at Watson Hotel in Mumbai which inspired two Indian photographers Hiralal Sen and Harishchandra Sakharam Bhatavdekar to experiment and make films in India.
Hiralal Sen made a short film called The Flower of Persia (1898) by taking pictures from a flower show exhibition. It was applauded but the man who won the distinction of being India’s First Motion Picture Filmmaker was H.S. Bhatavdekar, warmly addressed as Sawe Dada. He was professionally a portrait photographer and also did business with cameras as well as film equipment. After watching Lumière Brothers’ motion picture H.S. Bhatavdekar immediately imported cinema prints from London and made a motion picture The Wrestlers, a film on wrestling fight on the silver screen!
The film was released on 7th July 1896 in Mumbai and was a huge success.
Though H.S. Bhatavdekar shot the film in Mumbai but he got the film processed in London. He also imported a Film Projector from the U.K. and exhibited his film. He even bought Mumbai’s famous Gaiety Theatre in Mumbai and showed the movies. In over 2 decades of career, he made 120 short movies along with full-length films but tragically did not win much recognition.
He usually made realistic documentary film or factual films that captured the reality of common life like his short films were based on subjects like training of monkeys (Man and Monkey, 1899), renovation of Parsi fire temple (Atash Behram, 1901), the life of a British Member of Parliament of Parsi Indian origin, (Landing of Sir M.M. Bhownuggree, 1901). His career’s best documentary film was Delhi Durbar — the coronation of Edward VII in 1903 — in Delhi’s Coronation Park. Tragically this landmark documentary film is not available!!
True, H.S. Bhatavdekar made the first film The Wrestlers in 1896, almost 17 years before Dadasaheb Phalke‘s film Raja Harishchandra, which was released in 1913 but Phalke’s film was a full-length Feature Film while H.S. Bhatavdekar’s film was a short film or a documentary film featuring factual details of wrestling sports in India. Later Bhatavdekar made many documentaries hence H.S. Bhatavdekar is regarded as India’s First Documentary Filmmaker or ‘Father of Indian Factual Film’.
He died on 20 February 1958 working as Manager of Gaiety Cinema.