Cinemaazi remembers Save Dada on his birth anniversary
15 Mar 1968
Remembering well-known cinematographer Save Dada today on his birth anniversary—the ‘Father of Indian Factual Film’ was born on 15 March, 1868. Born Harishchandra Sakharam Bhatavdekar, he started off as a portrait photographer. Acknowledged as the first Indian to create moving images in India, he was inspired by the Lumiere Brothers, who pioneered the motion picture. Acquiring a motion picture camera from London, he went on to create India’s first film, a documentary called The Wrestlers (1899). It was a recording of a wrestling match at Bombay’s Hanging Garden. Save Dada went on to make short, silent, black and white documentary films such as Man and Monkey (1899) which depicted the training of monkeys, Atash Behram (1901) on the renovation of the fire temple, and Landing of Sir M M Bhownuggree (1901) on the life of the British Member of Parliament of Parsi Indian origin, and also covered the Delhi Durbar, the coronation of Edward VII in 1903 in Delhi’s Coronation Park. In the later years of his life, he also served as manager of Gaiety Theatre in Bombay. Saave Dada passed away on 20 February, 1958.
