Colour films in South Asia

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Afghanistan

Afghanistan has been making colour films since the late 1960s, notably These include Akharin Arezo (Last Wishes), Hamaasa e Ishg (An Epic of Love), Faraar (The absconder), Khakestar (Ash), Paranda Mohajer (Migratory Birds) and Saboor Sarbaaz (صبور سرباز Saboor Soldier).

Saboor Sarbaaz (Saboor The Soldier) 1985, Afghanistan

Khakestar-o-khak, 2004, Afghanistan

Panj Darya (Pakistan, 1968)

Jean Renoir's Le Fleuve (The River): The first Technicolor film shot entirely in India (or any South Asian country).

Ranmuthu Duwa/ Sinhalese/ 1962

Bangladesh and Pakistan

In 1964 when Zahir Raihan‘s full-length (tamaam rangeen) colour opus Sangam (Urdu) was released, Pakistan and Bangladesh were one nation state, and Bangladesh was called East Pakistan. Sangam can, therefore, be considered the first colour film of both countries because it was produced in East Pakistan. (By the same logic both nations should claim Kisan Kanya as their first colour film.)

Though only a few scenes of Eid Mubarak (1965) were in colour, it is sometimes referred to as the first colour film of (West) Pakistan.

Naila, 1965, was the next entirely-in-colour film. In Pakistan colour became the norm in the early-seventies.

See also CinemaScope and 70mm films

India

Kisan Kanya (lit: the peasant girl; 1937/ Dir: Moti B. Gidvani; prod. Ardeshir Irani) was arguably the first colour film of India and of South Asia.

Jean Renoir's Le Fleuve (The River) (1951/ France) was the first Technicolor film shot wholly in India or any part of South Asia. However, it was an English-language film from France and not an indigenous film.

See Colour films in South Asia: 3-- Hindi-Urdu films in colour

Myanmar

A colour documentary film on the "Sixth Buddhist Synonage" is considered the first colour film of the Myanmar cinema industry.

The first colour feature film "Chit Khai tar ahman par bei" (It's true we have loved) was produced by Yangon Film Company in 1958. This makes Burma/ Myanmar a pioneer among South Asian films because its first colour feature film was released before any other South Asian country had made a colour film (except India’s Hindi-Urdu industry, only two year after India’s gigantic Tamil industry, and five years before the massive Telugu industry, on most counts India's second biggest).

(No photograph available. Can any reader help? )

Nepal

Kumari (the first Eastman color Nepali film) was released in 1978

(No photograph available. Can any reader help?)

Pakistan

Pakistani Punjabi

The first ever Punjabi film to be made in colour in Pakistan was Panj Darya. It was released in the year 1968.

Sri Lanka

Henry Chandrawansa the producer and director of the first Sri Lankan Tamil film Samuthayam (Society) (1962), was a Sinhalese. Such was Sinhala-Tamil brotherhood in those days that the producer of the first Sinhala film was a Tamilian. Samuthayam was in 16 mm and in colour, according to one source in Technicolor. (No photograph available. Can any reader help? )

Ranmuthu Duwa (Island of Treasures) (Sinhalese/ 1962) was the first full-length colour film language to be produced in Sri Lanka.

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See also

Colour films in South Asia: 1—South Asia as a whole.

Colour films in South Asia: 2 (Indian Cinema)—India as a whole.

Colour films in South Asia: 3-- Hindi-Urdu films.