Marathi cinema

Marathi Cinema is one of the oldest industry in Indian Cinema. In fact the pioneer of cinema in Union of India was Dadasaheb Phalke, who brought the revolution of moving images to India with his first indigenously made silent film Raja Harishchandra in 1913, which is considered by IFFI and NIFD part of Marathi cinema as it was made by a Marathi crew.

The first Marathi talkie film, Ayodhyecha Raja (produced by Prabhat Films) was released in 1932, just one year after "Alam Ara" the first Hindi talkie film. Marathi cinema has grown in recent years, with two of its films, namely "Shwaas" (2004) and "Harishchandrachi Factory" (2009), being sent as India's official entries for the Oscars. Today the industry is based in Mumbai, Maharashtra, but it sprouted and grew first from Kolhapur and then Pune.

Marathi film industry has included the work of actors including, Nutan, Tanuja, V Shantaram, Dr. Shriram Lagoo, Ramesh Dev and Seema Dev, Nana Patekar, Smita Patil, Madhuri Dixit,Sonali Kulkarni, Sonali Bendre, Urmila Matondkar , Reema Lagoo, Lalita Pawar, Mamta Kulkarni, Nanda, Padmini Kolhapure, Sadashiv Amrapurkar, Sachin Khedekar, Durga Khote, and Others