The National Museum of Indian Cinema (NMIC), located in Mumbai, celebrates Bollywood as well as Indian cinema. It boasts of stacks of memorabilia, recordings and film-making tools.
The government-funded museum, housed in a 19th-century bungalow in south Mumbai, traces the film industry’s journey since the days of silent black-and-white films to the current colourful blockbusters (period of over 100 years).
The museum hosts replicas of the Mutoscope, the camera used by the Lumiere Brothers, and the Praxinoscope — a spinning cylindrical animation device invented in France in the 1870s.
Here are few more highlights of the museum.
- Fans can learn about India’s first full-length feature film, the 1913 Dadasaheb Phalke-directed Raja Harishchandra
- Listen to recordings of K. L. Saigal, considered the first superstar of Hindi-language cinema
- View hand-painted movie posters (including that of Pather Panchali – Satyajit Ray’s 1955 hit film)
- Take selfies beside a statue of Bollywood icon Raj Kapoor.
- The museum also celebrates films from other regions in India.
Cine lovers in Odisha and Odisha film artistes are upset (with Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting) that no posters or information regarding Odia films has been displayed at the National Museum of Indian Cinema (NMIC) in Mumbai.
“It is sad to know that Odia cinema has found no place in the museum. The poster of first Odia film ‘Seeta Vivah’ made in 1936 has not been displayed which clearly shows that our cinema has been completely ignored and neglected.”
What you will not find…
The last remaining print of India’s first “talkie”, the 1931 Alam Ara (The Light of the World), was destroyed in a fire in 2003.
India today produces close to 1500 films a year, and is the biggest producer of movies in the world.
