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Parallel Cinema also known as New Wave Cinema is a genre of Indian movies which are based on real life situations and are more realistic and naturalistic than Bollywood films.

Contents 1 Origins 1.1 In other languages 2 Other uses of "Parallel cinema" 3 Fate of parallel cinema 4 References

During the 1950s and 60s, intellectual film makers and story writers became frustrated with mindless dance and song genre of the typical Bollywood film. To counter this, they created a genre of films which depicted reality from an artful perspective. Most films made during this period were funded by state governments to promote an authentic art genre from Indian cinema fraternity.

Satyajit Ray, with his films like Pather Panchali (and the rest of the Apu Trilogy), is widely regarded as the pioneer of the Indian new wave cinema. Kumar Shahani, Mani Kaul, Saeed Mirza, Shyam Benegal and Ketan Mehta are other important names in the Hindi-language new wave cinema.

Basu Chatterjee made a film out of famous Hindi novel Sara Akash written by Rajendra Yadav soon followed by Mrinal Sen's Bhuvan Shome, are examples of late-1960s parallel cinema].

Adoor Gopalakrishnan extended the Indian new wave to Malayalam cinema with his Swayamvaram in 1972. Aravindan, Padmarajan, T.V. Chandran were the other notable names in Malayalam region.

Girish Kasaravalli, Girish Karnad and B V Karanth lead the way for parallel cinema in the Kannada film industry.

Parallel cinema may also refer to the offbeat Bollywood films. Recently notable films are Mr. and Mrs. Iyer, Joggers' Park, Chandni Bar and Dor.

The rising costs involved in film production and the recent commercialization of the films have had a negative impact on the so called art-films. The fact that investment returns cannot be guaranteed makes art films less popular amongst filmmakers. Unlike the European art film industry (which had a major influence on Indian art cinema), there is less of an art film audience in India.

• Indian Art Cinema
• Cinema of malayalam