Author: Kellner <[log in to unmask]> Date: 12/23/94 3:56 AM [Editor's note: This message was submitted to SCREEN-L by the "Author" noted above, and not by Jeremy Butler ([log in to unmask]).] This might be a bit out of the _film pioneers_-subject-line, mainly because I personally have no interest in joining the _who did what first_-contest. Anyway: Speaking of early cinema, I was wondering whether somebody ever had a close look on how cinema was introduced in non-European, non-US countries. I have mainly India on my mind, where the first film- show took place on July 7th, 1896. The chronicle of film introduction in India has been written, information is published, but apart from some in-depth articles written by Ashish Rajadhyaksha, I cannot think of somebody who actually investigated the _customarization_ (is that English, BTW?) of a new medium to the requirements of a specific cultural tradition (in this case, Indian). Moreover, the imagery which appears in the first Indian (_genuinely_ Indian) films (first feature film in 1913, but, here again, the _first_ is arguable) is quite telling, insofar as it was not mainly _indigenous_ visual styles that were used (Ajanta, Ellora and the rest of it), but already _hybridized_ visual worlds, which were, as far as my sources go, heavily influenced by British painting. [A [A [A [A [B [BI would be seriously interested to know how the introduction of film in other, especially Asian, countries proceeded - especially, what predecessors of the dramatic arts of the respective countries were used in the first indigenous film productions etc. Birgit Kellner Institute for Indian Philosophy University of Hiroshima