Sohrab Modi

Sohrab Merwanji Modi was born into a Persian family in the year 1897. He was a stage and film actor, a producer and a director. He did various films like Khoon Ka Khoon, Jhansi Ki Rani Jhansi Ki rani is a historical drama based on the >> Read More... , Sikandar, Pukar, Mirza Ghalib Mirza Ghalib was a biographical television serial >> Read More... , Prithvi Vallabh, etc. His movies carried strong messages of social and national issues.

In 1936, he launched Minerva Movietone, where his early movies dealt with social issues like Meetha Zehar (based on alcoholism) and Talaq (Right of Hindu women to divorce). Minerva Movietone became for its three historical movies – Pukar (1939), Sikander (1941), Prithvi Vallabh (1943). Many of the scenes from Pukar were filmed in Mughal courts and palaces, which gave the film its realism, which a studio-built sets could not provide.

Sikander was one of his greatest film in which Prithviraj Kapoor One of the most notable names in the Indian film i >> Read More... played the title role. The British writer rated the movie as “well up to the standard of that old masterpiece The Birth of a Nation”. The movie coincided with World War II World War II is a Malayalam information TV show on >> Read More... and Gandhiji’s Civil Disobedience, which helped the movie to arouse patriotic feelings and sentiment.

Modi had brought down technicians from Hollywood for the film Jhansi Ki Rani (1953), the first technicolor film. Mehtab played the role of Jhansi Ki Rani, who took up arms during the revolt of 1857. Though the film was shot superbly in Jhansi’s palace, it failed to connect the viewers and was a box office failure. With Mirza Ghalib (1954) he bounced back.

It was a story of Indian poet during the reign of last Mughal emperor. Bahadur Shah Zafar A television series titled "Bahadur Shah Zafar" wa >> Read More... . The film won the President’s Gold Medal for the Best Feature Film of 1954.Modi’s later film did not taste the success as his earlier films did. Sohrab Modi won Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1980. On 28th June 1984 he died of cancer of the bone marrow.