India has many regional film centres, such as
Bollywood
Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, is primarily produced in Mumbai. The popular term Bollywood is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (former name of Mumbai) and "Cinema of the United States, Hollywood". The in ...
(Hindi) in
Mumbai
Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...
,
Telugu cinema
Telugu cinema, also known as Tollywood, is the segment of Cinema of India, Indian cinema dedicated to the production of Film, motion pictures in the Telugu language, widely spoken in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Based in Film N ...
(Tollywood) in
Hyderabad
Hyderabad is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part of Southern India. With an average altitude of , much ...
,
Marathi cinema in
Pune
Pune ( ; , ISO 15919, ISO: ), previously spelled in English as Poona (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1978), is a city in the state of Maharashtra in the Deccan Plateau, Deccan plateau in Western ...
,
Tamil cinema
Tamil cinema is the segment of Indian cinema dedicated to the production of motion pictures in the Tamil language, the main spoken language in the state of Tamil Nadu. It is nicknamed Kollywood, a portmanteau of the names Kodambakkam, a Ch ...
in
Chennai
Chennai, also known as Madras (List of renamed places in India#Tamil Nadu, its official name until 1996), is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Tamil Nadu by population, largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost states and ...
,
Malayalam cinema
Malayalam cinema, also referred to as Mollywood, is a segment of Cinema of India, Indian cinema dedicated to producing films in the Malayalam, Malayalam language, primarily spoken in Kerala and the Lakshadweep islands. It encompasses both th ...
in
Kochi
Kochi ( , ), List of renamed Indian cities and states#Kerala, formerly known as Cochin ( ), is a major port city along the Malabar Coast of India bordering the Laccadive Sea. It is part of the Ernakulam district, district of Ernakulam in the ...
,
Kannada cinema in
Bangalore
Bengaluru, also known as Bangalore (List of renamed places in India#Karnataka, its official name until 1 November 2014), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the southern States and union territories of India, Indian state of Kar ...
,
Odia Cinema in
Bhubaneswar,
Assamese cinema in
Guwahati,
Punjabi cinema in
Mohali and
Bengali cinema (Tollywood) in
Kolkata
Kolkata, also known as Calcutta ( its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary ...
. Most film directors are known for their work with one regional industry, while many others are active directors of films from multiple industries.
Directors of parallel or independent cinema
Parallel Cinema is otherwise known as "
Art films" cinema, and is known for its serious and realistic films with real-life situations. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Indian government financed a number of such films, on Indian themes. Many of the directors were graduates of the
Film and Television Institute of India, Pune.
Ritwik Ghatak was a professor at the institute and a well-known director in his own right. The best-known Indian "neo-realist" is
Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray (; 2 May 1921 – 23 April 1992) was an Indian film director, screenwriter, author, lyricist, magazine editor, illustrator, calligraphy, calligrapher, and composer. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest and most influ ...
.
Active in multiple languages
The following is a list of film directors who have directed films from more than one regional film industry in India. This does not include directors who work in a single industry whose films have been dubbed into other languages.
Sanskrit film directors
:
* G. V. Iyyer
* Suresh Gayathri
*
Janardhana Maharshi
Bengali film directors
:
Hindi film directors
Punjabi film directors
Gujrati film directors
Kannada film directors
:
Malayalam film directors
:
Marathi film directors
:
Tamil film directors
:
Mari Selvaraj
Telugu film directors
:
Jammu and Kashmir film directors
References
Arvind Gupta Filmmaker Director&founder of purple flicks@purpleflicks.official, Traveler/Creator/Thinker/scuba diver, www.purpleflicks.com
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Film directors
Lists of film directors by nationality