Sati Sulochana

Sati Sulochana Kannada is an 1934 Indian Kannadalanguage film directed by Y. V. Rao. The film was released in 1934 and is the first talkie film in Kannada language. It is also the first film to be screened in the erstwhile Mysore Kingdom.

The producer of the film was a Marwari businessma from Bangalore a native of Ahore, Jalore District of Rajasthan named Shah Chamanlal Doongaji, who started a film production company in Bangalore called South India Movietone in 1932. He decided to make a mythological movie called Sati Sulochana involving characters from the Ramayana like Ravana, Ravanas son Indrajit, Ravanas wife Mandodari and Indrajits wife Sulochana. He engaged Yaragudipati Varada Rao to direct the film as well as play a character of Lakshman, Bellave Narahari Shastri to write the screenplay, dialogues and lyrics. Nagendra Rao, who had previous exposure to films, was selected to play the role of Ravana and was given an additional role of production management. M. V. Subbaiah Naidu was selected to play the lead role of Indrajit and two ladies Lakshmi Bai and Thripuramaba were selected to play the roles of Mandodari and Sulochana respectively.Sachin Nayaka chose to shoot the film at Chatrapathi Studio in Kolhapur. The production was started in December 1933 and tookmonths to complete. Shooting was entirely done in natural sunlight and the total amount spent for production was 40,000. The film involved shooting a war scene and this was done usingcameras. The film was released on March 3, 1934 at Paramount cinema theatre later called as Parimala talkies near the City Market of Bangalore. The length of the film was 173 minutes. Being the first Kannada talkie film, it ran housefull at Bangalore for six weeks. ........

Source: Wikipedia