India's First National Film Museum Opens in Mumbai Saturday Jan 19,2019

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the National Museum of Indian Cinema in Mumbai on Saturday Jan 19,2019

The inauguration ceremony was attended by a host of Bollywood stars including veteran actor Manoj Kumar, Aamir Khan, Kangana Ranaut, filmmaker Karan Johar, Simmba director Rohit Shetty and Zero director Aanand L Rai. 

From silent black-and-white films to colourful blockbusters bursting with song and dance, the evolution of Indian cinema is traced by a new museum in the home of Bollywood.

Costing 1.4 billion rupees ($19.6 million), India's First National Film Museum is spread across a stylish 19th-century bungalow and a modern five-storey glass structure in south Mumbai

The government-funded National Museum of Indian Cinema (NMIC) boasts stacks of memorabilia, recordings and film-making tools as well as interactive touch screens where visitors can watch clips from memorable movies.

Movie buffs can learn about India's first full-length feature film, the 1913 Dadasaheb Phalke-directed Raja Harishchandra, and listen to recordings of K. L. Saigal, considered the first superstar of Hindi-language cinema.

The museum also hosts replicas of the Mutoscope, the camera used by the Lumiere Brothers, and the Praxinoscope -- a spinning cylindrical animation device invented in France in the 1870s.

They are also able to view hand-painted movie posters, including for internationally acclaimed director Satyajit Ray's 1955 hit Pather Panchali, and click selfies beside a statue of Bollywood icon Raj Kapoor.

The museum takes visitors through "the journey of Indian cinema, from silent films to 'talkies' to the studio era to the new wave," Prashant Pathrabe, director general of the Indian government's film department, told