Mega celebrations to mark century of Indian cinema

Chennai: A host of gala festivities and cultural shows have been planned as the city gears to celebrate 100 years of Indian Cinema.

Billboards of yesteryear Tamil superhero and former ChiefMinister M G Ramachandran have also been put up at Satyam Cinemas here, as part of the official commencement of the celebrations being organised by the South Indian Film Chamber of Commerce (SIFCC) in association with Tamil Nadu government. The festivities are slated to be held from September 21to 24 to commemorate Indian cinema and Chennai`s special placein producing films in all South Indian languages till the early nineties. Besides Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, Chief Ministers of all the other three southern states are expected to participate in the celebrations. As part of the celebrations, old classical movies in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam are being screened in cinemas like Sathyam Seasons, Woodlands Symphony and Swarna Sakthi Abirami. Admission is free to view the classic movies. Among the old movies being screened are super hit `NadodiMannan` starring MGR (Tamil), legendary movie `Pasa Malar,`(Sivaji Ganesan) and former Andhra Pradesh Chief MinisterNTR`s mega hit of the 1950s `Maya Bazaar` (Telugu). `SatyaHarishchandra,` `Bangarada Manushya (Kannada),` and `Chemmeen(Malayalam),` are among the Kannada and Malayalam movies thatare being screened. Besides screening films in movie halls, SIFCC has gone astep ahead to reach out to people on centenary celebrations. Sivan Park (KK Nagar), Natesan Park (T Nagar), and Nagaeswara Rao Park (Mylapore) have now become venues for watching movies. G Chockalingam of Divya Films, who is organising moviesn parks for SIFCC, told PTI that they wanted to screen filmsin "as many parks as possible." "It is not only movies. We have also organised magic shows and other cultural programmes," he said. As regards special film shows, there are reports indicating that the Telugu film fraternity "may not participate" due to the unrest in Andhra Pradesh owing to the Telangana issue. PTI