Shooting for Indian films abroad is common in today’s times. We have a bulk of Indian films, including regional ones, shot on foreign lands. However, decades back, shooting in foreign locales was a big achievement and used to be perceived as a crowd-pulling factor for films. Do you know about the first Tamil film, which was shot abroad? It was the 1969 film Sivandha Mann, written, produced and directed by CV Sridhar. The film starred none other than one of the legends of the industry, Sivaji Ganesan. The actor was paired alongside actress Kanchana.
The film was released on November 9 on Diwali. It revolves around an Inspector General’s son (played by Sivaji) and a princess who rebels (played by Kanchana) against the tyrannical ruler of their region. It became the first movie to have portions shot outside India — with parts of France, Switzerland and the Alps shown extensively in the movie.
However, the project was initially supposed to be made with MG Ramachandran. The movie had a different script at that time and the shooting started with the title Andru Sinthiya Ratham. However, after filming some scenes, MGR backed out and the film was almost shelved. Later, the project was revived with Sivaji and a few changes in the script and was retitled by Sivandha Mann. MS Viswanathan came on board to compose the music for the film.
The film ran for 50 days on all its screens and completed 100 days in 9 theatres. It ran for a record 21 weeks in Chennai. The success of the film and the benchmark it set caused France to become a favourite spot for Tamil and Telugu films to be filmed in the following decade.
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