Hiralal Sen

Hiralal Hiralal is a prominent Indian film actor during th >> Read More... Sen is considered India’s first filmmaker. He was born on August 2, 1868, in Bagjuri, a village in Manikganj, Bengal Presidency, British India, in a Baidya Zamindar family to parents Chandramohan Sen(father), a successful lawyer and Bidhumukhi Sen(mother). He had one sibling, a brother named Motilal Sen.

Hiralal grew up in Calcutta. He developed a great interest and love for photography in his college days. In 1898, Professor Stevenson’s short film, along with the stage show named The Flower of Persia, was screened at the Star Theatre. While watching it, Hiralal got an idea and borrowed a camera from its director. He then recorded the whole film and made his own first film named A Dancing Scene. Soon, he got his own cinematograph camera with the help of his father and opened the Royal Bioscope Film Company, India’s first movie enterprise, along with his brother Motilal in 1898. 

He made over forty films in his career, many of which were made for the Classic Theatre, such as Bhramar, Hariraj, and Buddhadev. The longest film he produced was Alibaba And The Forty Thieves(1903), but it was never screened. He was also the first Indian to use film for advertising, as he also produced some product commercials and news films. The two famous advertisements by him were those of Jabakusum Hair Oil and Edward Tonic because he chose the grand villas located beside the Hooghly River in Bengal as the location for shooting them. He is also considered as the one to make India’s first political film because he recorded the rally which took place in opposition to Lord Curzon’s plan of dividing Bengal, in the year 1904. The film was screened on September 22, 1905, in the Town Hall, Calcutta. The last film his company produced was in 1913.

Sen joined London Bioscope, owned by Kumarshankar Gupta, a former employee of Royal Bioscope Company, after Royal Bioscope was folded up, as a result of a conflict with his brother. On October 2, 1917, a fire broke out in the godown where all of Sen’s films were stored and burnt them all. His last years were quite miserable as he suffered from throat cancer and faced economic troubles. He died on October 29, 1917.

The Bangladesh Film Department has introduced the ‘Hiralal Sen Memorial Award’ in his honor, and a biography has been made on his life starring Kinjal Nanda Kinjal Nanda is a Bengali actor. He is famous for >> Read More... , called ‘Hiralal’, which was released in 2021.