Lollywood

Lollywood (Urdu: لالی وڈ‎) is the Pakistani film industry based in the city of Lahore. The word "Lollywood" was first coined in the summer of 1989 in the now-defunct magazine Glamour published from Karachi by gossip columnist Saleem Nasir, in line with the American film industry's nickname Hollywood. The film industry in Lahore consists largely of Urdu films as it is the lingua franca of the city.

The film industry in Lahore started in 1929 with the opening of the United Players' Studios on Ravi Road. The cornerstone for the studio was set by Abdur Rashid Kardar, famous as A R Kardar (Pronounce: kaar'daar). Since then the studio has managed indigenous productions competing with other film production centres in the undivided India, namely Mumbai and Kolkata.

History

Birth of cinema (1896–1910)

Cinema was introduced to South Asia on 7 July 1896, when the Lumiere brothers' Cinématographe showed six short silent films at Watson's Hotel in Bombay. A few years later in 1898, Hiralal Sen started filming scenes of theatre productions in Calcutta, inspired by English professor Stephenson who had brought to South Asia, the country's first bioscope. Harischandra Sakharam Bhatavdekar imported a camera from London at a price of 21 guineas and filmed the first Indian documentary, a wrestling match in Hanging Gardens, Bombay, in 1897. He also filmed the first Indian news film, a record of Ragunath P. Paranjpe's return from Cambridge University upon securing a distinction in mathematics. Bhatavdekar is however best known for filming the Viceroy of Britain to subcontinent♙ Lord Curzon's Delhi Durbar that marked the enthronement of Edward VII in 1903.