As we near the completion of 100 glorious years of cinema in India, an old debate has cropped its head up. Even as Dadasaheb Phalke is now considered as the father of Indian Cinema (for Raja Harishchandra produced in 1913), Pune-based Vijay and Anil Torne have now filed a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking the honour for their late father Dadasaheb Torne.
Assisted by producer Vikas Patil, the brothers claim their father had produced India’s first film Pundalik, a year before Phalke’s Raja Harishchandra.
Tornes claim that their father’s first film was released on May 18, 1912, and have cited a couple of paper cuttings from May 25, 1912, that say Pundalik is now running at Coronation Cinematograph in Girgaum, Mumbai.
Vikas Patil, an eminent film producer and director of Indian Motion Pictures Producers Association, said, “Ramchandra Gopal, fondly known as Dadasaheb Torne, released Pundalik in Mumbai’s Coronation Cinematograph Theatre in 1912. An English daily, on May 25, 1912, published a positive review about the popular picture show at Sandhurst Road, Girgaum. It showcased Pundalik along with another movie titled, A Dead Man’s Child, for two consecutive weeks.
“A mention of the movie has also been made at Oxford University Press’ Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema (Page 227), stating the movie as the first in Indian Cinema.”
Yet Raja Harishchandra is considered to be the first full length, complete, Indian feature film.
Torne’s film was not given the status because of a technicality, and his contribution remained unrecognised in the history of Indian Cinema. Experts believe that Pundalik missed out on the honour as the movie was a shooting of a popular Marathi play. Also, since the cameraman, Johnson, was a British national, the film was processed in London. Therefore, the negatives of the film-reel remained in the UK, while Torne could only get the positives home.
Even the positive was lost in the great floods of Panshet in 1961.
The Tornes, along with Patil, have sent letters to the Indian government to get the long due acknowledgment of their father’s efforts and achievements in Indian Cinema. When the trio didn’t get a response from the government, they went ahead to file a PIL in the Bombay High Court.
“In the litigation, we have claimed for three things — recognise Dadasaheb Torne as the pioneer of Indian Cinema; obtain the negatives of the film, Pundalik, from UK for it is India’s intellectual property right; and recognise Pundalik to be the first Indian film,” said Vikas.
Dadasaheb Torne’s studio, Saraswati Cinetone, produced many other movies like Shyamsundar, Aut Ghatkecha Raja, Bhakt Pralhad, Chhatrapati Sambhaji, Thaksen Rajputra, Savitri, Raja Gopichand, Devyani among others. Interestingly, Shyamsundar was the first Indian movie to celebrate its silver jubilee. Dadasaheb also introduced the concept of double roles in Aut Ghatkecha Raja.
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