Ardeshir Irani(1886-1969)

Shri. Khan Bahadur Ardeshir Irani was born in Pune, Maharashtra, and was a writer, director, producer, actor, film distributor, film showman, and cinematographer in the silent and sound eras of early Indian cinema. He launched Sagar Movietone and Sagar Productions. He was the director of India's first sound film Alam Ara. He was the producer of India's first color film Kisan Kanya. He was renowned for making films in Hindi, Gujarati, Telugu, English, German, Indonesian, Persian, Urdu and Tamil. He was a successful entrepreneur who owned film theatres, a gramophone agency, a car agency, and Imperial Film Company, the parent company of Sagar. Ardeshir Irani is considered to be the father of Indian talkies. He was The first President of the Indian Motion Picture Producers Association (IMPPA) in 1937.