Bollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai, India. The term is often incorrectly used to refer to the whole of Indian cinema; it is only a part of the Indian film industry. Bollywood is the largest film producer in India and one of the largest in the world. The name is a portmanteau of Bombay (the former name for Mumbai) and Hollywood, the center of the American film industry.
Bollywood is generally referred to as Hindi cinema, though frequent use of poetic Urdu words is fairly common. There has been a growing presence of Indian English in dialogue and songs as well. It is not uncommon to see films that feature dialogue with English words and phrases, or even whole sentences.
Besides being popular among the India diaspora, such far off locations as Nigeria to Egypt to Senegal and to Russia generations of non-Indian fans have grown up with Bollywood during the years, bearing witness to the cross-cultural appeal of Indian movies. Over the last years of the twentieth century and beyond, Bollywood progressed in its popularity as it entered the consciousness of Western audiences and producers.
Bollywood is generally referred to as Hindi cinema, though frequent use of poetic Urdu words is fairly common. There has been a growing presence of Indian English in dialogue and songs as well. It is not uncommon to see films that feature dialogue with English words and phrases, or even whole sentences.
Besides being popular among the India diaspora, such far off locations as Nigeria to Egypt to Senegal and to Russia generations of non-Indian fans have grown up with Bollywood during the years, bearing witness to the cross-cultural appeal of Indian movies. Over the last years of the twentieth century and beyond, Bollywood progressed in its popularity as it entered the consciousness of Western audiences and producers.