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Cinema

Kisan Kanya

किसान कन्या

Moti B. Gidwani · 1937

Synopsis

In a countryside crushed by poverty, a landowner ruthlessly exploits the landless peasants. Ramu, a poor and honest peasant mistreated by him, finds himself wrongly accused of his murder, and must answer for a crime he did not commit before the estate's steward and the villagers, among them Bansri, Ramdai and Randheer.

Context

Ardeshir Irani, producer of the first Indian talking film, wanted to make a colour film and acquired from an American firm the rights to the Cinecolor process. Saadat Hasan Manto wrote the screenplay and dialogue from a story by Professor M. Ziauddin; the cinematography is by Rustom Irani and the music, ten songs, by Ram Gopal Pandey. Shantaram's Sairandhri had had colour scenes in 1933, but they were processed in Germany.

Who it is for

Two hours twenty in Hindi, with no French release; the Cinecolor process renders only a limited range of colours.

Prizes and reception

The first Indian colour film made entirely in India; it had only a middling success in cinemas.

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