Economic Issues and Challenges of Assamese Cinema

Abstract

The journey of Assamese cinema dates back to 1935 with the making of a movie called ‘Joymoti’, by Jyoti Prasad Agarwala. The hope of making cinema in Assamese language had dawned in Jyoti Prasad Agarwala’s mind as early in 1922 during his stay in Calcutta. The popular Bengali movies had an impact on Jyoti Prasad Agarwala. Later he went to Germany to acquire improved knowledge of technology for making cinema. Jyoti Prasad Agarwala had the opportunity to get himself familiar with such actors and film makers of world repute such as Charlie Chaplin, D.W.Griffith and Rene Claire and this also acted as motivating force for him for making an Assamese movie. Since 1935, the journey continued accompanied with a number of issues and challenges which prevented the regional cinema to become a fully fledged industry in Assam.