Hiralal Sen

Hiralal Sen, performing the Flower of Persia at the Star Theatre, Kolkata. Hiralal Sen (, Hiralal Shen; 2 August 1868 – 26 October 1917 ) is generally considered one of India's first filmmakers. In 1903, he filmed the popular Alibaba and Forty Thieves, the first full-length Indian film. A noted photographer, he is also credited with creating India's first advertising films and quite possibly India's first political film. A fire in 1917 destroyed all of his films.

Early life Hiralal Sen's native home was in Bagjuri, a village in Manikganj, approximately 80 km from Dhaka, the present-day capital of Bangladesh. Although he was the son of a successful lawyer of a Baidya zamindar family of that region, he grew up in Calcutta. Borrowing Stevenson's camera, Sen made his first film, "A Dancing Scene" from the opera The Flower of Persia. Most of the films he made depicted scenes from theatrical productions played at Amarendra Dutta's Classic Theatre in Calcutta. At that time raw film was imported into the country.

In 1905, Sen advertised a "genuine Swadeshi film of our own make". Documenting the "Anti-Partition Demonstration and Swadeshi movement at the Town Hall, Calcutta, on the 22nd September 1905", it is, according to critic Samik Bandyopadhyay, India's first political film.