The Allure of Bollywood

Bollywood, its origins, its history, its sources of inspiration and its connections, all of this is narrated in an exhibition at the Louvre Abu Dhabi, entitled Bollywood Superstars: A Short Story of Indian Cinema. With over 1500 films distributed annually in almost twenty languages - from commercial films in Hindi to those in the Tamil language, up to the Bengalese cinema with its higher regard for social issues - Indian cinema is a regional industry which has blossomed into a global phenomenon, one of the largest in the world. Through works of art, costumes, textiles, photos and also thanks to more than thirty film clips, the exhibition looks at the evolution of the seventh art on the Indian subcontinent. It begins far off, from the first props of storytellers, Mughal weaponry, Chinese shadow theatre, then onto the first silent films, heading onto the rise of the superstars of Bollywood and today, in an itinerary that highlights the wealth of tradition, the influence of popular art and the relation with mythology and religion.