- published: 27 Dec 2015
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Bhojpuri films are films in the Bhojpuri language, mainly watched by people from western Bihar, eastern Uttar Pradesh in North India and Terai in southern Nepal.
Bhojpuri cinema is also watched in many parts of the world, where Indian diaspora has settled, including Brazil, Fiji, Guyana, Mauritius, South Africa, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many colonizers faced labor shortages due to the abolition of slavery; thus, they imported many Indians, many from Bhojpuri-speaking regions. Today, some 200 million people in the West Indies, Oceania, and South America speak Bhojpuri as a native or second language and they also watch Bhojpuri films.
In 1960s, The first President of India, Rajendra Prasad, who hailed from Bihar met Producer Bishwanath Prasad Shahabadi and asked him to make a movie in Bhojpuri, which eventually led to first Bhojpuri film's release in 1963. Bhojpuri cinema history begins in 1963 with the well-received film Ganga Maiyya Tohe Piyari Chadhaibo ("Mother Ganges, I will offer you a yellow sari"), which was Produced by Biswanath Prasad Shahabadi under the banner of Nirmal Pictures and directed by Kundan Kumar. Throughout the following decades, films were produced only in fits and starts. Films such as Bidesiya ("Foreigner", 1963, directed by S. N. Tripathi) and Ganga ("Ganges", 1965, directed by Kundan Kumar) were profitable and popular, but in general Bhojpuri films were not commonly produced in the 1960s and 1970s.