 Entrance of the Aurora Film Corporation in Kolkata | |
| Type | Privately held company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Film production |
| Founded | 1906 |
| Headquarters | India |
Aurora Film Corporation is a film production company based in Kolkata, West Bengal, India, and primarily involved in producing Bengali films. Aurora has produced and distributed several landmark Bengali-language films including Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali.
Anadi Nath Bose established the Aurora Film Company around 1906. [1] The company at that time was a travelling cinema unit, and exhibited films, magic and drama shows in different parts of Bengal. [1] [2] The company made some short silent films, generally featuring female dancers and filmed with a hand-winding camera. [2] It also started to produce newsreels and continued to import films from abroad. [2]
In 1911, Anadi Nath Bose, cinematographer Debi Ghosh, and magician Charu Ghosh formed the Aurora Cinema Company, opening a studio and film-processing laboratory in North Kolkata. Anadi Nath Bose assumed sole management of the company in 1912. [2] Anadi Nath Bose and Debi Ghosh began making more short features in 1916, notable among them Bisha Briksha, based on the novel of the same name by Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay. [1] In 1917, the company received a contract from the British government to produce features for the entertainment of the armed forces. [2] In 1919, Anadi Nath Bose began screening his films at the Manmohan Theatre in North Kolkata, and released the company's first feature-length film, Dasyu Ratnakar, in 1921, screening it at the Russa Theatre (today the Purna Cinema) in South Kolkata. [2] In 1921 Anadi Nath Bose renamed his company Aurora Film Corporation. [1]
In 1946, a fire in Aurora's studio in Kolkata destroyed most of its films. [2] Founder Anadi Nath Bose died on 21 September the same year. His elder son Ajit Bose and youngest son Arun Bose and, later, grandson (Anjan Bose), took over the management. [2]
Aurora's studio was located in Maniktala, Kolkata. This was housed inside a palatial building made by Banabehari Shaw facing a large lake. This property had been leased by Anadi Nath Bose from Banabehari Shaw. Unfortunately after the lease lapsed, the studio was demolished. The company currently maintains a studio in the Salt Lake neighbourhood of Kolkata, and a post-production facility in Tollygunj. [2]
Aurora was involved in the distribution and/or production of several acclaimed films. The company bought Pramathesh Barua's production company (Barua Pictures), and produced two films starring Barua, Pujari and Niyoti . [2] Aurora was the distributor for Satyajit Ray's debut film Pather Panchali (1955); it was the distributor for Ray's Parash Pathar (1958) and producer for Jalsaghar (1958). [3] The company partially financed Aparajito (1956), the second instalment of Rays' Apu Trilogy . [4] Noted film director Ritwik Ghatak made documentaries for the company. [2]
Aurora became inactive in the feature film industry in the 1970s, although it continued to produce shorts and documentaries as of 2011. [3] The last feature film Aurora produced was Duronto Joy in 1973, and the last one it distributed was Moyna Tadanta in 1982. [3]
According to Anjan Bose, the current (2011) managing director, Aurora is "the only film producing house in India being run by a family for three generations". [2]
Aurora pioneered newsreels in India. [2] These newsreels contain important video documents featuring personalities such as Rabindranath Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi, Subhas Chandra Bose, and events such as the celebration of the India's first Independence Day and the funeral of Rabindranath Tagore. [2]
Aurora produced the first children's film of India, Hate Khari. [2]
The company's Raja Rammohan (1965) was the first Bengali film to be declared tax-free (patrons did not have to pay entertainment tax). Bhagini Nivedita (1962) was the first Bengali film to be shot in England. [3]
Aparajito is a 1956 Indian Bengali-language drama film written and directed by Satyajit Ray, and is the second part of The Apu Trilogy. It is adapted from the first half of Bibhutibhushan Bannerjee's novel Aparajito. It starts off where the previous film Pather Panchali (1955) ended, with Apu's family moving to Varanasi, and chronicles Apu's life from childhood to adolescence in college.
Pankaj Kumar Mullick was an Indian music composer, playback singer and actor, who was a pioneer of film music in Bengali cinema and Hindi cinema at the advent of playback singing, as well as an early exponent of Rabindra Sangeet.
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SoumitraChatterjee was an Indian film actor, play-director, playwright, writer, thespian and poet. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential actors in the history of Indian cinema. He is best known for his collaborations with director Satyajit Ray, with whom he worked in fourteen films.
Rituparno Ghosh was an Indian film director, actor, writer and lyricist. After pursuing a degree in economics, he started his career as a creative artist at an advertising agency. He received recognition for his second feature film Unishe April which won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film. Having won 19 National Awards, along with his contemporaries Aparna Sen and Goutam Ghose, Rituparno heralded contemporary Bengali cinema to greater heights. Ghosh died on 30 May 2013 in Kolkata after a heart attack. Ghosh was also one of the openly homosexual personalities in Indian cinema.
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Pramathesh Chandra Barua was an Indian actor, director, and screenwriter of Indian films in the pre-independence era, born in Gauripur, Dhubri, Assam.
Rabindranath Tagore is a 1961 Indian documentary film written and directed by Satyajit Ray about the life and works of noted Bengali author Rabindranath Tagore. Ray started working on the documentary in early 1958. Shot in black-and-white, the finished film was released during the birth centenary year of Rabindranath Tagore, who was born on 7 May 1861. Ray avoided the controversial aspects of Tagore's life in order to make it as an official portrait of the poet. Though Tagore was known as a poet, Ray did not use any of Tagore's poetry as he was not happy with the English translation and believed that "it would not make the right impression if recited" and people would not consider Tagore "a very great poet," based on those translations. Satyajit Ray has been reported to have said about the documentary Rabindranath Tagore in his biography Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye by W. Andrew Robinson that, "Ten or twelve minutes of it are among the most moving and powerful things that I have produced."
Subir Banerjee is an Indian actor who played Apu in Satyajit Ray's Bengali film Pather Panchali, the first installment of The Apu Trilogy.
Amit Bose was an Indian filmmaker, film director and editor, who directed all-time classics like Abhilasha (1968) and, as an Editor, worked on movies like Madhumati (1958), Sujata (1959), Parakh (1960), Usne Kaha Tha (1960), Kabuliwala (1961), Prem Patra (1962), Bandini (1963) and Shakespeare Wallah (1965). He worked as Chief Film Editor for Bimal Roy and with several other directors including Sanjay Khan.
Nitin Bose was an Indian film director, cinematographer and screenwriter of the nation's film industry. He was born in Calcutta and died in the same city. In the 1930s and early 40s, he worked with New Theatres, who made bilingual movies: in both Bengali and Hindi. Later, he moved to Bombay and directed under the banners of Bombay Talkies and Filmistan.
Satyajit RayLH was an Indian director, screenwriter, documentary filmmaker, author, essayist, lyricist, magazine editor, illustrator, calligrapher, and composer. Widely considered one of the greatest film-makers of all time, Ray is celebrated for works including The Apu Trilogy (1955–1959), The Music Room (1958), The Big City (1963) and Charulata (1964) and the Goopy–Bagha trilogy.
Cinema of West Bengal, also known as Tollywood or Bengali cinema, is an Indian film industry of Bengali-language motion pictures. It is based in the Tollygunge region of Kolkata, West Bengal, India. The origins of the nickname Tollywood, a portmanteau of the words Tollygunge and Hollywood, dates back to 1932. It was a historically important film industry, at one time the centre of Indian film production. The Bengali film industry is known for producing many of Indian cinema's most critically acclaimed global Parallel Cinema and art films, with several of its filmmakers gaining prominence at the Indian National Film Awards as well as international acclaim.
Kadambari Devi was the wife of Jyotirindranath Tagore and daughter-in-law of Debendranath Tagore. She was ten years younger than her husband, whom she married on 5 July 1868, at the age of nine. Her husband arranged for her to be educated. She was nearly the same age as her brother-in-law Rabindranath Tagore, being only two years older than him.
Dwijen Mukhopadhyay was an Indian composer and singer whose musical career spanned six decades. He was a performer of Rabindrasangeet, Bengali basic songs, Bengali and Hindi film songs. He recorded more than 1500 songs, of which about 800 are songs of Rabindranath Tagore. He also directed music in Bengali feature films and composed music for popular Bengali basic songs.
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