How Yusuf stitched cinematic dreams into frames that defined generations

From cotton cloth to silver, plastic, and LED screens, one family has illuminated the stories that define a century of Indian cinema

Devika Rani in a liplock with Himanshu Rai (Karma, 1933) or Dilip Kumar falling in love with Nargis (Andaz, 1949) happened on a cotton screen. That was the material cinema screens were made of when British, Russian, and German studios formed the core of the Indian movie business. By the time the first Indian films, Pundalik (1912) and Raja Harishchandra (1913), appeared, the business was already well underway. In the 1920s, silver-coated screens arrived, producing brighter images, but the basic material remained fabric. 

Cut to the 1950s. Cinemascope and curved screens arrived. The studio system broke