In Bollywood Dreams photographer Jonathan Torgovnik explores

the beloved pastime of an Indian population of over one billion.

As the largest film producer in the world with more than 800 films

made each year, the Indian movie industry is a cultural phenomenon.

Paying tribute to the stars, filmmakers, technicians and moviegoers

who make this possible, Bollywood Dreams puts a human face on the

fantastical spectacle-rich films that compel more than fourteen

million people to the cinema each day in India. Torgovnik's lucid

photo-essay is both a behind-the-scenes personal diary of the magic

and contagious excitement of Indian film and a discerning look at

the film industry's profound impact on Indian society. Singular in

its conception, this book is unique in the way it documents India's

spectacular movie culture against the backdrop of everyday life.

With an introduction to Indian cinema by Nasreen Munni Kabir,

an internationally recognized authority on the subject, and extended

captions by Torgovnik explaining each image, Bollywood Dreams is an

important testament to the power of cinema as both entertainment

and social phenomenon.

Jonathan Torgovnik's photographs take me back to an India that

thrives on pure cinema, perfectly capturing our need for innocent

surrender to an unreal movie paradise. His photographs show us both

the grit and the fantasy, the lurid and the sensual. Welcome to this

unique, dusty, insightful journey.' (Mira Nair, director of Monsoon

Wedding and Mississippi Masala )

Jonathan Torgovnik began his career as a combat photographer in the

Israeli army, before graduating with a BFA degree from the School of

Visual Arts in New York. His photographs from various projects and

assignments have been published in international publications including

Newsweek, GEO, The Sunday Times Magazine, The Telegraph Magazine and

Paris Match , among others. Torgovnik's award-winning photographs have

been included in numerous solo and group exhibitions in the United

States and Europe, and are in the permanent collections of museums

such as The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Bibliothèque

Nationale de France in Paris.

Nasreen Munni Kabir is a documentary filmmaker and author who

has made several series for television on Hindi cinema, including Movie

Mahal and In Search of Guru Dutt. She programmes Indian film seasons

for Channel 4 UK and has organized festivals of Indian Cinema at the

Pompidou Centre, Paris. Her books include Guru Dutt: A Life in Cinema

(1996), Talking Films: Conversations on Hindi Cinema (1999) with Javed

Akhtar and Bollywood: The Indian Cinema Story (2002). Born in India,

Kabir has lived in France and in Britain for most of her life. In January

2000 she was made a Governor of the British Film Institute.