Bhojpuri film industry

Bhojpuri cinema refers to films produced in the Bhojpuri language in the eastern Uttar Pradesh, western Bihar and Madhesh in southern Nepal.The first Bhojpuri talkie film, Ganga Maiyya Tohe Piyari Chadhaibo, was released in 1963 by Vishwanath Shahabadi. The 80's saw the release of many notable as well as run-of-the-mill Bhojpuri films like Bitia Bhail Sayan, Chandwa ke take Chakor, Hamar Bhauji, Ganga Kinare Mora Gaon and Sampoorna Tirth Yatra. Bhojpuri cinema has grown in recent years. Bhojpuri movies are seen across various parts of Europe and Asia where second and third generation migrants still speak the language; as well as in Suriname, which has a large Bhojpuri-speaking population.

Bhojpuri, often considered a dialect of Hindi, originates in western Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh in northern India. Speakers of it and its creoles are found in many parts of the world, including Brazil, Fiji, Guyana, Mauritius, South Africa, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago and The Netherlands. During the late 1800s and early 1900s, many colonizers faced labor shortages due to the abolition of slavery; thus, they imported many Indians, many from Bhojpuri-speaking regions, as indentured servants to labor on plantations. Today, some 200 million people in the West Indies, Oceania, and South America speak Bhojpuri as a native or second language.

In the 1960s, The first president of India, Rajendra Prasad, who hailed from Bihar, met Bollywood Actor Nazir Hussain and asked him to make a movie in Bhojpuri, which eventually led to first Bhojpuri film's release in 1963. Bhojpuri cinema history begins with the well-received film Ganga Maiyya Tohe Piyari Chadhaibo ("Mother Ganges, I will offer you a yellow sari"), which was produced by Biswanath Prasad Shahabadi under the banner of Nirmal Pictures and directed by Kundan Kumar. Throughout the following decades, films were produced in fits and starts. Bidesiya ("Foreigner", 1963, directed by S. N. Tripathi) and Ganga ("Ganges", 1965, directed by Kundan Kumar) were profitable and popular, but in general Bhojpuri films were not commonly produced in the 1960s and 1970s.

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