Chittajallu Pullayya ( Telugu: చిత్తజల్లు పుల్లయ్య; 1898 – 6 October 1967) was an Indian film director and screenwriter. He is one of the earliest film personalities in

Telugu cinema Telugu cinema, also known as Tollywood, is the segment of Indian cinema dedicated to the production of motion pictures in the Telugu language, widely spoken in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Telugu cinema is based in Film Nagar, ...

being associated with the industry right from the silent era. Pullayya started his film career in 1921 as a camera apprentice to the father of Telugu cinema, Raghupati Venkaiah Naidu’s 'Star of the East' in Madras, and at 'Kohinoor' in Bombay. He was also the playwright for

Kakinada Kakinada ( formerly called Kakinandiwada, Coringa, and Cocanada; ) is the sixth largest city of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh and serves as the district headquarters of the Kakinada District. It lies on the coast of the Bay of Bengal. J. ...

-based Young Men’s Happy Club. He made a silent three-

reel A reel is an object around which a length of another material (usually long and flexible) is wound for storage (usually hose are wound around a reel). Generally a reel has a cylindrical core (known as a '' spool'') with flanges around the ends ...

short film A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...

''Bhakta'' ''Markandeya'' (1926 or 1931) and to exhibit it he started a tent theatre named 'City Electric Cinema' and took the projector and chairs to various towns and exhibited the film, thus pioneering a

movie theatre A movie theater (American English), cinema (British English), or cinema hall (Indian English), also known as a movie house, picture house, the movies, the pictures, picture theater, the silver screen, the big screen, or simply theater is a ...

movement in

Andhra Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to the ...

. He later ran the permanent Minerva theatre. In 1933, he made his

feature film A feature film or feature-length film is a narrative film (motion picture or "movie") with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole presentation in a commercial entertainment program. The term ''feature film'' originall ...

directorial debut with

East India Film Company The East India Film Company was an Indian film production company, based in Calcutta, Bengal Presidency, British India. It was the first Indian film company to screen a movie at an international film festival. Started in 1932 in Calcutta, by R. ...

's first Telugu film '' Sati Savitri'' in

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

which received an honorary diploma at the

Venice Film Festival The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival ( it, Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica della Biennale di Venezia, "International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale") is an annual film festival h ...

. He then directed '' Lava Kusa'' (1934) and ''Sati Anasuya'' (1936), the first Telugu

children's film A children's film, or family film, is a film genre that contains children or relates to them in the context of home and family. Children's films are made specifically for children and not necessarily for a general audience, while family films ar ...

made with sixty

child actors The term child actor or child actress is generally applied to a child acting on stage or in movies or television. An adult who began their acting career as a child may also be called a child actor, or a "former child actor". Closely associated t ...

. He continued to direct films like '' Vara Vikrayam'' (1939), ''Maalati Madhavam'' (1940), '' Pakka Inti Ammayi'' (1953) under the

. He directed '' Bala Nagamma'' (1942) and ''Apoorva Sahodarulu'' (1950) under Gemini Pictures after shifting base to Madras. He is well remembered for '' Lava Kusa'' (1963), the story of

Lava Lava is molten or partially molten rock (magma) that has been expelled from the interior of a terrestrial planet (such as Earth) or a moon onto its surface. Lava may be erupted at a volcano or through a fracture in the crust, on land or un ...

and

Kusa Kusa or KUSA may refer to: * Kusa, Russia, a town in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia * Kusa, Latvia, a village in Madona District, Latvia * Kusa, Oklahoma, United States * Kusa, indigenous name of Beles River (in Gumuz language) * Kusa, Afghanistan ...

in Hindu epic ''

Ramayana The ''Rāmāyana'' (; sa, रामायणम्, ) is a Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epic composed over a period of nearly a millennium, with scholars' estimates for the earliest stage of the text ranging from the 8th ...

'', which won the

National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Telugu The National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Telugu is one of the National Film Awards presented annually by the Directorate of Film Festivals, the organisation set up by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, India. It is one of several ...

. Pullayya introduced Bhanumathi and Anjali Devi to the film industry through ''Vara Vikrayam'' (1939) and ''Gollabhama'' (1947) respectively.

Filmography

# ''Ramadasu'' (1933) # '' Sati Savitri'' (1933) # '' Lava Kusa'' (1934) # ''Sri Krishna Tulabharam'' (1935) # ''Anasuya'' (1936) # ''Dhruva'' ''Vijayam'' (1936); Event occurs at 6:08 # ''Chal Mohana Ranga'' (1937) # ''Dasavataramulu'' (1937) # ''Kasula Peru'' (1937) # ''Mohini Bhasmasura'' (1938) # ''Satyanarayana Vratam'' (1938) # '' Vara Vikrayam'' (1939) # '' Malathi Madhavam'' (1940) # '' Bala Nagamma'' (1942) # ''Narada Naradi'' (1946) # '' Gollabhama'' (1947) # ''

Vindhyarani ''Vindhyarani'' () is a 1948 Indian Telugu-language film directed by C. Pullayya. It is a film based on a drama written by Pingali Nagendra Rao. Pushpavalli played the title role of Vindhyarani. Plot Durjaya kills his elder brother Maharaja Jay ...

'' (1948) # ''Apoorva Sahodaralu'' (1950) # ''Sankranti'' (1952) # '' Pakka Inti Ammayi'' (1953) # '' Devanthakudu'' (1960) # '' Naan Kanda Sorgam'' (1960) # '' Lava Kusa'' (1963) # '' Paramanandayya Sishyula Katha'' (1966) # ''Bhuvana Sundari Katha'' (1967) # '' Bhama Vijayam'' (1967)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Pullaiah, C. Telugu film directors Indian male dramatists and playwrights Indian theatre directors Indian arts administrators 20th-century Indian dramatists and playwrights 1898 births 1967 deaths 20th-century Indian film directors People from Kakinada Film directors from Andhra Pradesh Screenwriters from Andhra Pradesh Telugu screenwriters 20th-century Indian male writers 20th-century Indian screenwriters