Kohinoor Film Company
Kohinoor Film Company was an Indian film studio established in 1919 by Dwarkadas Sampat. According to Ashish Rajadhyaksha and Paul Willemen, it was the largest and most influential studio of the Indian silent film era. The studio gained national prominence when its 1921 film Bhakta Vidur, was banned by the British colonial government on the ground that the character Vidur, played by its producer Sampat, was "portrayed as a 'thinly-clad version' of Mahatma Gandhi."
Under Kohinoor, directors such as Kanjibhai Rathod and Homi Master made some of the most popular films of the era. For example, under Rathod's direction, the 1924 film Gul-e-Bakavali is widely regarded as the 'first all-India super hit'. Several stars of the time such as Zubeida, Khalil, and Raja Sandow started their careers at the studio. Film scholar Suresh Chabria, a former director of the National Film Archive of India, argues that Kohinoor Film Company was "perhaps the first Indian studio to decisively move away from the artisanal production practices of D. G. Phalke, S. N. Patankar, and others."
History
Dwarkadas Narendas Sampat started his career in Indian cinema in 1904, when he brought a projector and began to organise film screenings in Rajkot, Bombay Presidency. He later entered film production and, through a partnership with S. N. Patankar, established Patankar Friends & Co, which, according to Rajadhyaksha and Willemen, 'took off in 1917' with Sampat's entry.Film historian Amrit Gangar notes that Sampat established the Kohinoor Film Company after differences with Patankar.
The studio also trained such people as Nandlal Jaswantlal and Mohan Bhavnani, and produced artists such as Goharbai, Zebunissa and Rampiyari.
Along with Ranjit Movietone and the Imperial Film Company it was the largest movie studio when Indian talkies began in the 1930s.