Ayyaṅkāḷi
A figure from the books
#Ayyankali
Ayyaṅkāḷi · 1863–1941
In the books · 1 chapter
Who this is
Cinema — printer, photographer and magician who became India's first feature film-maker and the founder of its film industry.
“The man who lit the flame of the world's largest film industry died poor and almost forgotten in 1944 — and twenty-five years later India named its highest film honour after him, so that every legend of Indian cinema now waits a lifetime to receive, as a crown, the name of a man the industry once let starve.”
The big idea, in the book's words:
“Watching an imported film about Christ in 1910, he saw Krishna and Rama in his mind's eye instead — and decided Indians must see their own gods, their own stories, on their own screen. Three years later he delivered Raja Harishchandra, the first Indian feature film.”
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