India by 2022 will be creating more than one thousand eight hundred movies every year and all of this began in 1888 when it created its very first documentary. Even before independence, the film industry had gained its independence and had begun creating history. Though filmmakers like D.G. Tendulkar, who had studied motion pictures in Moscow and Germany, and K.S. Hirelekar who studied culture films in Germany introduced the concept of documentary shooting to India as late as the 1930s.
Even then directors like Harishchandra Sakharam Bhatwadekar undertook this and made India’s very first documentary. Bhatwadekar who was also known as Save Dada was a professional Maharashtrian portrait photographer and one of the very few witnesses of the Lumiere Brothers film show in 1896 in Mumbai Maharashtra. He went on creating movies and documentaries like A man and his monkeys (1899), Local Scenes: Landing of M. M. Bhownuggree (1901), and Atash Behram (1901).
The first Indian documentary shot by Bhatwadekar centered around two people, Pundalik Dada and Krishna Navi who were wrestlers by profession. This legendary documentary was shot at the very famous Hanging gardens of Mumbai Maharashtra and was named “The Wrestlers (1899)”. One might not call it a documentary with today’s day and ages’ standers but it was a factual film covering a wrestling match at the Hanging Gardens.
After the release of the documentary, Bhatwadekar went on to become the “Father of Indian Factual Film”. National Film Development Corporation of India mentioned in ‘Indian Cinema a Visual Voyage’ that Bhatavdekar was the first Indian to also create moving images in India.
For what Bhatwadekar did in 1888 out of his passion for cinematography and motion picturization, today we remember him as a legend that he was for stepping the first few stones as India entered the movie creation world. Little is known about the first documentary but a lot is known about the conviction and passion that the director and his team had put into making it which still inspires directors from all backgrounds.
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