== Filmistan ==
Bombay-based studio; Est: 1943-44 leasing the
former premises of the [[Sharda]] studio.
Launched by major breakaway group from
[[Bombay Talkies]] led by their production
controller Rai Bahadur Chunilal and producer
Shashadhar Mukherjee. Their first film was
[[Gyan Mukherjee]]’s [[Chal Chal Re Naujawan]]
(1944, with [[Ashok Kumar]]). The studio
continued more or less from S. Mukherjee’s
two influential Bombay Talkies productions:
[[Naya Sansar]] (1941) and the colossal hit
[[Kismet]] (1943). Its subsequent output
elaborated these into the first consistent
Filmistan
96
generic codification and regulation of a post-
Independence All-India Film market-place. By
the early 50s, the ‘ film factory’ (as [[B.R.
Chopra]], who worked there briefly, called it)
had revolutionised distribution with midbudget
genre productions selling mainly on
their star value and their music. The approach
was exemplified by Gyan Mukherjee himself
and extended by P.L. Santoshi, [[Subodh
Mukherjee]], [[Nasir Hussain]] and Najam Naqvi,
with stars Ashok Kumar, [[Dev Anand]], [[Dilip
Kumar]], [[Shammi Kapoor]] and [[Nalini
Jaywant]], and music directors [[C. Ramchandra]]
and [[S.D. Burman]]. Following the hits
[[Shaheed]] (1948), [[Shabnam]] (1949: establishing
the famous star pair of Dilip Kumar and Kamini
Kaushal and featuring Burman’s music) and
[[Samadhi]] (1950), Filmistan’s style arguably had
the largest impact of any studio on later
independent commercial film-making in Hindi.
This is evident e.g. in [[Manmohan Desai]]’s
cinema. Other notable Filmistan cineastes are
P.L. Santoshi, [[Nandlal Jaswantlal]], [[Kishore
Sahu]] and Ramesh Saigal. The studio yielded
yet another mutation when Shashadhar
Mukherjee moved out to start Filmalaya (1958).

[[Studio]]