'''Kolhapur Cinetone'''


A rare instance of a film studio funded directly
by feudal royalty. Amid the popular cultural
renaissance in the first decades of the 20th C.
around the court of the Shahu Maharaj at
Kolhapur, Baburao Painter’s Maharashtra
Film was already a showpiece. When V.
Shantaram, Damle-Fattelal and Baburao
Pendharkar left to start Prabhat in 1929, and
later when Painter himself resigned to seal the
fate of Maharashtra Film, numerous efforts
were made by the Shahu Maharaj himself to
continue the tradition that had earned
Kolhapur the title of the ‘Hollywood of Marathi
film’. The family started the Shalini Cinetone
exclusively to keep Painter employed. In 1933,
when Prabhat moved to Pune, they launched
Kolhapur Cinetone as its rival, enticing
Baburao Pendharkar, Bhalji Pendharkar and
Master Vinayak to quit Prabhat and to take
over this new venture. Apart from Bhalji
Pendharkar’s mythological, Akashwani (1934)
and Vinayak’s début feature Vilasi Ishwar
(1935), the other notable production before the
studio closed is Dadasaheb Phalke’s only
sound film, his intended magnum opus,
Gangavataran (1937).

[[Studio]]