संत तुकाराम

Prabhat's Marathi devotional classic Sant Tukaram (1936) — directed by Vishnupant Govind Damle and Sheikh Fattelal, starring Vishnupant Pagnis — the abhang-driven film about the Varkari saint that ran a full year in one theatre and was honoured at Venice.

This story is not Hindi but Marathi — yet a milestone of Indian devotional cinema. Prabhat Film Company's Sant Tukaram arrived on 12 December 1936, directed by Vishnupant Govind Damle and Sheikh Fattelal, and produced by V. Shantaram. It tells the life of the seventeenth-century Varkari poet-saint Tukaram (1608–1650), whose abhangs were addressed to Vithoba, also called Panduranga.

The music was composed by Keshavrao Bhole, and the soul of the film is Tukaram's abhangs — plain Marathi verses that speak straight to God. The screenplay was written by Shivram Washikar. On screen Tukaram was played by Vishnupant Pagnis, whose gentle, feminine acting manner suited a saint whose verses voice a devotee's lover-like longing. After this role Pagnis became a lifelong devotee of Tukaram.

Sant Tukaram was the first Indian film to run for more than a year in a single theatre — fifty-seven weeks continuously. At the 1937 Venice Film Festival it was adjudged among the three best films of the world, alongside Hungary's Maria Nover and Australia's The Flying Doctor. It thus became one of the earliest Indian films to win international recognition.