Mani Ratnam is widely credited with revolutionising the Tamil film industry in the 1960s.
 The first Tamil talking feature film, Kalidas, a multilingual directed by H M Reddy was released on 31 October 1931, less than seven months after India's first talking motion picture Alam Ara
Following these two commercial successes, Mani wrote and directed Agni Natchathiram in 1988

