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