Jayabharathi

Jayabharathi (1946 or 1947 – 6 December 2024) was an Indian film director and screenwriter who worked on Tamil films. Regarded as one of the pioneers of alternate cinema in the Tamil film industry, Jayabharathi directed nine films across five decades. As a film student in the 1970s, Jayabharathi explored the idea of making films in an alternate genre in Tamil cinema and became one of the pioneers of the movement. His first film Kudisai (1979) was released after he undertook a crowd-funding route in order to raise Rs90,000 to distribute the film for screening, and in order to generate investment, he sold donation tickets and conducted programmes at government colleges. The film won critical acclaim upon release and has since been preserved at the National Film Archives. He subsequently went on to work with the newspaper Dinamani and wrote articles focussing on world cinema issues. He was briefly associated as an actor in C. Rudhraiya's second film Gramathu Athiyayam (1980), but was later replaced in the lead role by newcomer Nandakumar. His second film was Oomai Jannagal (1984), which depicted a tale on the bonded labour in a tea estate during the rule of the British Raj, while his…