Celebrating 100 years of Indian Cinema: a quiz

By Alana Podolsky

On 3 May 1913, Raja Harishchandra, the first Indian feature-length film, premiered. Since then, India’s film industry, mostly known as Bollywood but operating outside of Bollywood’s Mumbai base as well, has become the world’s most prolific film industry: 1,325 films were produced in 2008. Salman Rushdie recently said on The Daily Show with John Stewart, “I always thought it was unfair on the Bombay film industry to call it Bollywood. Because it’s actually much bigger than Hollywood. Hollywood should be called ‘Hombay’.”

For many, Indian cinema will call to mind elaborate melodramatic musicals and Shah Rukh Khan, but it is, like India, far more diverse. To celebrate the 100^th birthday of India’s remarkable cinematic world, take this quiz and test your knowledge!

All answers can be found in Oxford Reference, the home of Oxford’s reference publishing.

Alana Podolsky is a publicity assistant at Oxford University Press. She graduated from the University of Chicago with a degree in South Asian Languages and Civilizations in 2011.

Oxford Reference is the home of Oxford’s quality reference publishing, bringing together over 2 million entries, many of which are illustrated, into a single cross-searchable resource. With a fresh and modern look and feel, and specifically designed to meet the needs and expectations of reference users, Oxford Reference provides quality, up-to-date reference content at the click of a button. Made up of two main collections, both fully integrated and cross-searchable, Oxford Reference couples Oxford’s trusted A-Z reference material with an intuitive design to deliver a discoverable, up-to-date, and expanding reference resource.

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