INTRO / HOOK
The Indian film industry, currently worth billions of dollars, began because one man watched a film about the life of Christ and decided India should have one about its own gods.
MAIN STORY
Raja Harishchandra released in 1913, directed by Dhundiraj Govind Phalke, known universally as Dadasaheb Phalke. Britannica’s entry on the film records it as India’s first full-length feature.
The Quint’s account of the making of the film documents the circumstances: Phalke, a printer and photographer by trade, financed the production by selling and mortgaging what he had, travelled to London to learn filmmaking equipment and technique, and returned to build a production from nothing.
Britannica’s separate biography of Phalke records the career that followed, spanning roughly a hundred films.
The casting detail that everyone remembers is accurate: no woman would take a role in the film, and the female parts were played by men. The actor who played the queen Taramati was, by the standard account, a cook.
BACKGROUND
Cinema arrived in India within months of its invention. The Lumière brothers’ films were screened in Bombay in 1896, and a small industry of short films and actualities developed over the following decade.
What did not exist was an Indian narrative feature.
Phalke’s stated motivation, as recorded in the accounts of the period, was watching a film on the life of Christ and being struck by the absence of Indian mythological figures on screen.
That origin is worth sitting with, because it means Indian cinema began as an explicitly nationalist and explicitly mythological project, decades before independence. The devotional and mythological films performing enormously well in 2026 are not a new trend. They are the industry’s original genre.
WHAT WE KNOW
Established: Raja Harishchandra released in 1913 and is regarded as India’s first full-length feature; it was directed by Dadasaheb Phalke; Phalke was a printer and photographer before entering film and trained himself in the craft; he financed the production by selling and mortgaging personal assets; female roles were played by men; Phalke went on to a prolific filmmaking career.
Not fully established: complete prints of the film do not survive, and some details of the production come from later accounts rather than contemporaneous documentation.
WHY IT MATTERS
The preservation point is the urgent one. Raja Harishchandra survives only in fragments. A very large proportion of India’s silent-era output is entirely lost, destroyed by nitrate decay, fire and the recycling of film stock for its silver content.
That is not a historical curiosity, it is an ongoing failure. India has never adequately funded film preservation, and material from the 1930s onward continues to deteriorate.
The second point is about continuity. The mythological film has been commercially central to Indian cinema for its entire existence, disappeared from the theatrical mainstream for a few decades, and has returned emphatically. The current devotional boom is a restoration, not an invention.
And the Dadasaheb Phalke Award remains India’s highest honour in cinema, which keeps his name in circulation even where the films are gone.
ADDITIONAL CONTEXT
Phalke’s later career was difficult. The industry he started industrialised rapidly and he struggled to remain commercially relevant within it, which is a very old story about pioneers.
The Marathi film Harishchandrachi Factory dramatised the making of Raja Harishchandra and was itself India’s Oscar entry, which is a pleasing loop.
For anyone interested in the material history, the honest summary is that most of it is gone. What survives is fragments, stills, and written accounts, which is why the accounts matter.
BENGALURU BAATH TAKE
A printer from Nashik watched a film about Jesus, decided India needed its own gods on screen, mortgaged everything he owned, sailed to London to learn how cameras worked, came back, could not find a single woman willing to act, cast his cook as the queen, and started an industry. That is a better story than most of the films it produced. The part that should bother us is that we cannot watch what he made, because India did not bother keeping it. A century of cinema and we are still funding restorations one anniversary at a time.
SOURCES & VERIFICATION
Verification status: CONFIRMED · Independent confirming sources: 4
- 1. Britannica — https://www.britannica.com/topic/Raja-Harishchandra
Confirms: Raja Harishchandra recorded as India’s first full-length feature film, 1913, directed by Phalke. - 2. Britannica (Phalke) — https://www.britannica.com/biography/Dadasaheb-Phalke
Confirms: Biography of Dadasaheb Phalke including his career and prolific output. - 3. The Quint — https://www.thequint.com/entertainment/indian-cinema/making-of-raja-harishchandra-india-first-feature-film
Confirms: Account of the making of the film including financing, training and casting circumstances. - 4. Wikipedia — Raja Harishchandra — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raja_Harishchandra
Confirms: Compiled production history, casting details and surviving-print status.
IMAGE INFORMATION
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Image source: Original artwork generated by Bengaluru Baath
Image file: 041_Indian_Cinema_Started_With_A_Man_Who_Mortgaged_His_Life_Insurance.jpg
Photographer / copyright holder: Bengaluru Baath (original graphic)
Licence / usage: Original work owned by Bengaluru Baath. Free to publish, modify and syndicate.
Date created / downloaded: 2026-09-20
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