INDIAN CINEMA - 1 - ANSWERS

1. A. Neecha Nagar

Neecha Nagar, a 1946 Hindi-Urdu film directed by Chetan Anand, written by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas and Hayatullah Ansari and produced by Rashid Anwar, was a pioneering effort in social realism in Indian cinema. It starred Chetan Anand’s wife Uma Anand with Rafiq Ahmed, Kamini Kaushal, Rafi Peer and Zohra Sehgal.

Neecha Nagar became the first Indian film to gain recognition at the Cannes Film Festival, after it shared the “Grand Prix du Festival International du Film” (Later known as “Palme d'Or”) award at the first Cannes Film Festival in 1946. It's the only Indian film to be awarded a Palme d'Or till date.

Neecha Nagar was inspired by Russian writer Maxim Gorky’s “The Lower Depths”, one of his best known plays. Neecha Nagar was the debut film of actress Kamini Kaushal and Pandit Ravi Shankar as a music director.

2. B. Adi Shankara

Adi Shankaracharya is a 1983 Indian film in Sanskrit language directed by G. V. Iyer. The film depicts the life and times of 8th century Hindu philosopher, Adi Shankaracharya, who consolidated the doctrine of Advaita Vedanta (Non-dualism) in Hindu philosophy. It was the first film in India to be made in Sanskrit. At the 31st National Film Awards in 1983, it won four awards, including Best Film, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography and Best Audiography.

Sarvadaman Banerjee (best known for playing Krishna in Ramanand Sagar's popular Television series "Krishna" in 1993) played the role of “Adi Shankaracharya”, while veteran actor Bharat Bhushan played Shankara's father.

M. Balamuralikrishna, veteran Carnatic vocalist, music composer scored the music for the film.

3. A. Yaadein

Yaadein, a 1964 black and white Hindi film directed and produced by Sunil Dutt also starring himself (the only other actor in the film is Nargis Dutt that too in a silhouette in the final scene), is the first Indian film in cinema that features only a single actor and hence has found an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records in the category “Fewest actors in a narrative film”.

Film narrative progresses through dialogues and background music composed by Vasant Desai, who also scored two songs sung by Lata Mangeshkar.

The film was a unique attempt since it was a soliloquy act (monologue) performed by Sunil Dutt, in the role of a worried loving husband, who is surprised to see his wife and children not at home one day as he returns from the work. Making his own assumptions, he starts imagining about the reason for their absence and in turn begins talking to himself about his own mistakes and regrets.

The film won the National Film Award for “Best Feature Film in Hindi” in 1964.

4. C. Kannada

The Kannada Film Industry is known as “Sandalwood”, one of the many film industries around the world to mimic the Hollywood-pattern (- wood) name. Karnataka, known for its sandalwood (Mysore Sandal) inspired the prefix “Sandal”.

5. A. Water

'Water' is a 2005 drama film, written and directed by Deepa Mehta, produced by her Canadian husband David Hamilton with screenplay by Anurag Kashyap. The film is the third and final installment of Mehta's Elements trilogy - preceded by Fire (1996) and Earth (1998). The film starring Seema Biswas, Lisa Ray, John Abraham, and Sarala Kariyawasam in pivotal roles and Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Waheeda Rehman, Raghuvir Yadav, and Vinay Pathak in supporting roles, is set in 1938 and explores the dark lives of widows at an ashram in Varanasi and covers controversial subjects such as misogyny and ostracism.

The Film’s songs were composed by A. R. Rahman with lyrics by Sukhwinder Singh and Raqeeb Alam while the background score was composed by Mychael Danna (Canadian film score composer best known for his soundtrack for “Life of Pi”). The outstanding Cinematography of the film was done by Giles Nuttgens, who has worked with Deepa Mehta on several of her films.

The film premiered at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival, where it was honoured with the Opening Night Gala and released in India on 9 March 2007 after several controversies.

Water was Canada's official entry for "Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film" in 2006.