Page 492 - Art and Crafts of Bangladesh

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THE CINEMA BANNER PAINTING OF
BANGLADESH AND RELATED CONTEXTS
Shawon Akand

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The history of cinema banner painting is closely related to the rise, development and
evolution of the film industry, especially with the rise of commercial film screening
and the construction of the movie theatre.
The first public film show was held in a Parisian café in 1895 on 28th December by
the Lumiere Brothers. After seven months, the first film screening took place in India
on 7th July, 1896 in Mumbai in a hotel, once more by the Lumiere Brothers. But there
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is dispute over the question of when and where it was first screened in Kolkata and it
is not certain who showed it. Different writers have given different information at
different times although most of them have not mentioned the source of their
information. But there is reliable evidence of the fact that film was probably screened
in January 1897 in Kolkata. 2
The people of Dhaka were introduced with film or cinema the very next year. In 1898
the Bedford Cinema Company of Kolkata had the first film show in the Crown Theatre
of Dhaka on 17th of April. This information was published in the 17th April, 1898
edition of weekly Dhaka Prakash. The increasing interest in film among mass people
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led to the need for a permanent cinema hall for the purpose of screening film
commercially. Thenceforth, began the tradition of the exhibition hall for the sole
purpose of film screening. ‘Picture House’is supposedly the first cinema hall in Dhaka
of its kind which is now known as ‘Shabistan’ located in Armenian Street. By 1930,
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at least three more cinema halls were established in Dhaka. It is reported that in the
20s, 30s and 40s more and more cinema halls were built all over the country including
Dhaka as the popularity of films was gradually increasing. There were 120 cinema
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halls altogether in Bangladesh at the time of the partition. 6
According to a survey conducted by the film magazine Sequence edited by Alamgir
Kabir, the total number of cinema halls in Bangladesh was 208 in the year 1974. The
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number increased to 747 in 1990. The exact number of cinema halls in Bangladesh at
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present (2005) could not be figured out. However it has been reported from several