World's first science-Sanskrit film on Mangalyaan to premier in August

The first science-Sanskrit film in the history of world cinema, Yaanam that revolves around India’s successful Mangalyaan mission, is all set to reach audiences in August.

The much-awaited science documentary in the classical language, revolving around the success story of India’s historic Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) alias Mangalyaan, would be premiered before a selected audience on August 21 in Chennai.

MOM was successfully launched in 2013 by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). ISRO Chairman S Somanath would launch the premier at Chennai in a function, which would also be attended by former chairman of the space agency K Radhakrishnan and the present VSSC Director S Unnikrishnan Nair.

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Ravi Kottarakkara, secretary, South Indian film chamber, would also take part in the programme, said national award winning filmmaker Vinod Mankara, who helmed the docu-film. He said Yaanam is based on Radhakrishnan’s book “My Odyssey: Memoirs of the Man Behind the Mangalyaan Mission”.

“The objective of the documentary is to project the potentials of the ISRO and the capabilities of its scientists before the world. It explains how the Indian scientists have overcome all the limitations and made the complex Mars mission a huge success in the first attempt itself,” he told PTI.

Mankara said the movie was made with the complete support of ISRO. He said the 45-minute documentary is a complete Sanskrit film by all means as the entire script and dialogues are in the ancient language.

Majority of the ancient texts of the sub-continent including that of space and astronomy were compiled in Sanskrit and so what is wrong in using that language as a medium in a movie which tells about the country’s Mars mission, he asked.

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The director’s “Priyamanasam”, only the third Sanskrit flick in the world, had won the national award for the best feature film in that language. It was also the opening movie in the feature section of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in the year 2015.

Besides screening it for the scientist community and in universities and colleges in the country, the director also plans a global premier of his documentary. The 4K digital DTS movie is produced by A V Anoop under the banner AVA Productions.

(With inputs from agencies)