General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

Harishchandrachi Factory (हरिश् चंद्राची फॅक्टरी)

Harishchandrachi Factory (हरिश् चंद्राची फॅक्टरी; English: The Factory of Harishchandra) is a 2009 Marathi-language biographical comedy directed by Paresh Mokashi that depicts Dadasaheb Phalke's making of Raja Harishchandra (1913), India's first feature film.¹ Rather than covering Phalke's whole life, the film concentrates on the years 1911 to 1913, when an unemployed former printing-business owner stumbled into a tent cinema, taught himself filmmaking in London, and produced India's first feature against financial and social resistance.² It was selected as India's official entry to the 82nd Academy Awards in the foreign film category.¹

Key fact	Detail
Subject	Dadasaheb Phalke's making of Raja Harishchandra (1913), India's first feature film, covering roughly 1911–1913¹^•²
Director and writer	Paresh Mokashi, a Marathi theater veteran, in his directorial debut¹
Technical profile	Marathi, 96 minutes, 35 mm, color; music by Anand Modak, cinematography by Amalendu Chaudhary, editing by Amit Pawar³
Principal cast	Nandu Madhav as Phalke, Vibhavari Deshpande as Saraswatibai Phalke, with Mohit Gokhale and Atharva Karve³
Oscar entry	India's official entry to the 82nd Academy Awards, chosen from 15 competing films by a jury headed by Asha Parekh; the second Marathi film selected after Shwaas (2004)¹
Production	Script written in 2005; 60 shooting days including a London schedule; post-production completed in 2008⁴
Recognition	Gollapudi Srinivas National Award of 2008 for Mokashi; representation at the Golden Globe Awards and the BAFTA⁵^•⁶

Spoilers

Story and setting

The film opens in 1911, under British rule, with Lokmanya Tilak imprisoned in Mandalay. In Mumbai, films are occasionally screened in a tent for foreigners and elite Indians, and most people do not know the medium exists. Dhundiraj Phalke, having abandoned a well-established printing business after a quarrel with his partner, comes across a tent theater by accident and becomes obsessed with motion pictures.³

With the support of his wife Saraswatibai and his children, Phalke travels to London, where British filmmakers teach him the art and science of filmmaking, and returns to make Raja Harishchandra. The historical record behind these events includes his 1912 voyage to buy a Williamson camera and printing tools, his pawning of his wife's jewelry and the family furniture to fund the film, and his inability to find a woman to play Taramati in an era when cinema was considered a dubious profession; the male actor Anna Salunke was ultimately cast in the role.⁷ The film shows Saraswatibai pawning jewelry, furniture and finally the home, and sitting at the editing table while Phalke cooks clumsily, making the marriage the fulcrum of the narrative.⁸

Treatment and style

A comedy, not a costume drama. Mokashi deliberately avoided the conventions of the Indian biopic: no sepia tones, no black-and-white sequences, no moving camera, no monologues about passion or revolt against the British. He described the film as a positive tale built on the "One rasa theory" (sole emotional tone sustained throughout, avoiding mixed drama) used in films like Life is Beautiful, keeping the story simple and humorous with no dramatic emotional conflict.⁹ He treated the events of Phalke's life as an adventure layered with light humor, saying he avoided the word "struggle" because it suggests a sorrowful, larger-than-life journey.²

The title refers to an episode in the story: when Phalke recruits crew for his first film, families object that filmmaking is socially unacceptable, and he tells the men, "Just tell them we are joining a factory."¹⁰ Mokashi added that he chose the name because he saw qualities of honesty and integrity shared by Phalke and his screen subject Harishchandra, and because places of active physical work in that era were called factories or mills.¹¹

Nandu Madhav, a theater actor, plays Phalke with comic timing that reviewers compared to Charlie Chaplin's screen persona; Mokashi cast him and Vibhavari Deshpande from his own theater company without auditions.⁸^•⁴ Nitin Desai built the period sets, largely at his Mumbai studio, and the cinematography favors warm shades of yellow, brown, orange, red and amber matching the film's cheerful mood.¹¹^•¹²

Fact and fiction

Mokashi based the film on research begun after reading Bapu Watve's biography of Phalke in 2005, supplemented by the National Film Archives of India in Pune and interviews with people whose fathers and uncles had known Phalke's era. He stated that the milestone events shown actually happened, including the incident in which Phalke's son was hurt during a shoot and Phalke continued filming, while the dialogue was his own invention.² "We might have fictionalised some incidents, but these too are basically drawn from facts," he told the Times of India.¹¹

Not all historians accepted the approach. The film historian Sanjit Narwekar, a National Award winner for his writing on Marathi cinema history, criticized the film for romanticizing Phalke's hardships as comedy rather than recounting them faithfully, and pointed out historical inaccuracies.¹⁰

Production and financing

Mokashi wrote the script in 2005 and spent roughly four years seeking a producer. Producers liked the script but wanted songs, dances, bigger stars, or a Hindi version; unwilling to change it, he decided in 2008 to produce the film himself and mortgaged his house, with his father's support, to raise production money.⁴^•¹³ The crew was cast in 2005 and stayed with the project until shooting began in 2008. The film was shot over 60 days at locations including a Pune bungalow, Manori beach, Nitin Desai's studios, Mukesh Mills, Girgaon, and a London schedule recreating Phalke's camera purchase.⁴^•⁹

Release and reception

The film premiered in limited release at the 7th Pune International Film Festival on 15 January 2009, where it was well received, and received a wide Indian theatrical release in January 2010, distributed by UTV Motion Pictures.¹⁴^•¹¹^•⁶ In September 2009 the Film Federation of India chose it as India's entry to the 82nd Academy Awards over 15 competing films including the Bollywood titles New York and Delhi-6; it did not reach the Oscar finals.¹^•¹⁰ It also went on to represent India at the Golden Globe Awards and the BAFTA, and Mokashi received the Gollapudi Srinivas National Award of 2008 for a debut director.⁶^•⁵

Reviewers praised the film for informing without becoming a documentary or a lecture. Shoma Chatterji, a freelance journalist and author writing on cinema and gender, wrote that it "does not appear like a historical film at all" and succeeds in conveying Phalke's obsession to the audience.¹² On Rotten Tomatoes it holds an audience score of 98 percent, and on IMDb a rating of 8.4/10 from about 5,200 users.¹⁵^•¹⁶ Its arrival, a few years before the Indian film industry's centennial in 2013, was noted as a fitting dramatization of Indian cinema's origin, showing both the dependence on British equipment and training and the tension between traditional customs and Western influence in urban life.¹⁷

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Indian films (individual works) › Marathi films

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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