Ramanujan (film)

Ramanujan is a 2014 biographical film based on the life of renowned Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan. The film written and directed by Gnana Rajasekaran, was shot back to back in Tamil and English languages. Ramanujan has been produced by the independent Indian production house Camphor Cinema. The cast consists of Indian and British film, stage and screen personalities. It marks the film debut of Abhinay Vaddi, the grandson of veteran Tamil film actors Gemini Ganesan and Savitri, as the protagonist.

We had very few photos of Ramanujan and his family. So, we had to purely depend on whatever information was available on the social setup of Iyengars and other castes of that period. We had to design costumes keeping in mind the three phases of his life and those surrounding him the Kumbakonam phase, his life in Chennai and then, in London,Gnana Rajasekaran looked for an actor, who would physically resemble Ramanujan and signed Abhinay Vaddi for the main role, who is the grandson of veteran Tamil actor Gemini Ganesan. Michael Lieber was signed to play Edensor Littlewood. Lieber confessed he had no knowledge of Ramanujan, when he signed the film, and went as far as to meet Bela Bollobas, who worked with Littlewood personally, for his research work. He found it difficult to speak the Tamil lines, but appreciated it later on, I would be lying if I said that the task of learning Tamil was not daunting at first, but once I got the hang of it I was able to appreciate what a beautiful language it is. There were many different ways of learning the Tamil lines some used audio tapes, prompting, flash cards, or word boards. I learnt the meaning of the words and memorised chunks of dialogue. Similarly, Kevin McGowan, who was signed for the role of G. H. Hardy, was unfamiliar with the story of Ramanujan. The film also stars Bhama, Suhasini Maniratnam, Abbas and Richard Walsh amongst others. Sunny Joseph, best known for his highprofile Malayalam works with directors Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Shaji N. Karun, was signed as cinematographer. ........

Source: Wikipedia