Empire Films

The Imperial Conference (1926) resolved to reserve 7.5% of screen time in the British Empire for films made within the Empire. This measure was intended to privilege the British film industry as opposed to the US industry in the Indian market, helping to revitalise the post-WW1 British cinema in the process. However, although the idea was initially welcomed by organisations like the Bombay Cinema and Theatres Association and the Indian Motion Picture Producers Association, such organisations soon raised the demand, that as the Empire’s main film industry, 50% of the quota should be reserved for Indian cinema. Whereas the first result of the Conference was to limit Hollywood’s access to the Indian market, the Indian demands effectively ended up regulating British access to the Indian market as well, favouring indigenous production. In the context of the Swadeshi polemic, the Indian Merchants Chamber led by Seth Walchand Hirachand argued that the only answer to combat Hollywood (and, implicitly, Britain) in India was a combination of tax incentives and the tenfold escalation of customs duty on imported films. Many of these debates informed the Indian Cinematograph Committee’s work (1928), published in 5 volumes.

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