Ezra Mir

Ezra Mir was born on October 26, 1903, in Calcutta, West Bengal. His career began as a stage actor before moving to New York Click to look into! >> Read More... in 1924, where he started working as an actor and later became an editor. It was during his stay in New York he made his first short film called The Symbolesque in 1929. After he moved back to India, he turned to directing films based on the genre of Hindi Theatre. In 1931, Mir directed his first full-length film, Noorjehan, for the Imperial Film Company, followed by several other films like Zarina (1932). Alongside, he produced many films for Madan Theatre Studios. One of them went on to become his most well-known work, called Rickshawala. In 1939, Mir proceeded to set up his studio, Everest Pictures. 

Mir scripted the films Romana, Revenge and, Evangeline for the producer at Dolores Del Rio unit of United Artistes, Edwine Carewe, on whose advice he changed his Jewish birth name, Edwyn Meyers, to Ezra Mir. Another reason why he chose to change his name was he felt like his birth name did not sound Indian. Even though he made a significant number of movies, he always felt more drawn towards documentaries, which is why in the 1940s, he joined the Film Advisory Board. For them, he made three remarkable short films, namely The Road Click to look into! >> Read More... to Victory, Making Money, and the Voice of Satan. In 1965, he founded the Indian Documentary Producers Association, and worked on over 700 documentary films. His other notable films include Premi Pagal (1933) and Farzande Hind (1934). He received the honourary Padma Shri award in 1970. After a long and prosperous life, Mir passed away on March 7, 1993, in Mumbai.