Sen, Hiralal

Hiralal Sen

Sen, Hiralal (1866-1917) a cine-personality was born in Bogjudi village under the district of Manikganj in 1866. In 1896, while a student of I.Sc he watched the cinema, arranged by Star Theater and from then he felt very much interest to cinema or film and in pursuing that he left academic study. He then started to exercise bioscope and in the year 1898, he started to exhibit cinema in the Classic Theater in Kolkata. He set up Royal Bioscope Company along with his younger brother Motilal Sen. Since 1900, he had imported modern apparatus from overseas and was able to make the company globally standardized.

Afterwards, he grasped the technique of working with movie camera and special aspect. Later, he photographed dynamic movie clip of various social programs.

Since 1900 to 1917, he made 40 short films.  In 1904, he first made speechless movie entitled Ali Baba and forty thieves.  Furthermore, he made a great deal of documentary films, advertising films and news film.  Hiralal Sen passed away on 29 October in 1917 in Kolkata. On his mark, Bangladesh Film Department has introduced ‘Hiralal Sen memorial award’. [Mohammad Kabirul Hasan]