Kamal Haasan is an Indian actor, filmmaker, screenwriter, playback singer, television presenter and politician who works mainly in Tamil cinema. Besides Tamil, he has also appeared in some Malayalam, Hindi, Telugu, Kannada and Bengali films. He is considered to be one of the greatest actors in the history of Indian cinema. Haasan is also known for introducing many new technologies and cosmetics to the Indian film industry. He has won numerous accolades, including Four National Film Awards, Nine Tamil Nadu State Film Awards, Four Nandi Awards, One Rashtrapati Award, Two Filmfare Awards and 17 Filmfare Awards South. He was awarded the Kalaimamani Award in 1984, the Padma Shri in 1990, the Padma Bhushan in 2014 and the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Chevalier) in 2016.
Sree Narayana Guru was a philosopher, spiritual leader and social reformer in India. He led a reform movement against the injustice in the caste-ridden society of Kerala in order to promote spiritual enlightenment and social equality. His famous quote was "one caste one religion and one god for all men".
Muhammad Kutty Panaparambil Ismail, known mononymously by the hypocorism Mammootty (/mɐmːuːʈːi/), is an Indian actor and film producer who works predominantly in Malayalam and Tamil language films. He has also appeared in Telugu, Kannada, Hindi, and English-language productions. In a career spanning five decades, he has acted in more than 400 films. He is the recipient of several accolades, including three National Film Awards, seven Kerala State Film Awards, and thirteen Filmfare Awards South. For his contribution to film, the Government of India awarded him the Padma Shri in 1998. In 2022, he was honoured with Kerala Prabha Award, the second-highest honour given by the Government of Kerala.
Madath Thekkepaattu Vasudevan Nair, popularly known as M.T., is an Indian author, screenplay writer and film director. He is a prolific and versatile writer in modern Malayalam literature, and is one of the masters of post-Independence Indian literature. At the age of 20, as a chemistry undergraduate, he won the prize for the best short story in Malayalam at World Short Story Competition conducted by The New York Herald Tribune. His first major novel Naalukettu, written at the age of 23, won the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award in 1958. His other novels include Manju (Mist), Kaalam (Time), Asuravithu and Randamoozham. The deep emotional experiences of his early days have gone into the making of MT's novels. Most of his works are oriented towards the basic Malayalam family structure and culture and many of them were path-breaking in the history of Malayalam literature. His three seminal novels on life in the matriarchal family in Kerala are Naalukettu, Asuravithu, and Kaalam. Randamoozham, which retells the story of the Mahabharatha from the point of view of Bhimasena, is widely credited as his masterpiece.
Suresh Gopi is an Indian actor, politician, playback singer and television presenter. He works predominantly in Malayalam cinema and has also appeared in some Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Bollywood films. Suresh made his acting debut as a child in the 1965 film Odayil Ninnu. He made his debut as an adult in 1986 and since then, he has acted in more than 250 films. Suresh Gopi is a recipient of the National Film Award and the Kerala State Film Award in 1998 for his performance in Kaliyattam. He was a nominated member of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Parliament of India.
François Gautier is a journalist based in India who served as the South Asian correspondent for multiple reputed French-language dailies. He advocates for an Indigenous Aryan narrative.
Madhyamam is a Malayalam-language newspaper published in Kerala, India, since 1987. It was founded by Ideal Publications Trust run by the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind wing in Kerala. It has nine editions in India and its Persian Gulf edition Gulf Madhyamam has nine in the Middle East.
Mohanlal is an Indian actor, producer, distributor, host, and playback singer who has starred in mainstream blockbuster and art-house films. He has made over 350 appearances in feature films during the span of his career, primarily in Malayalam cinema and also in Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, and Kannada films.
Vanaprastham: The Last Dance is a 1999 Indo-French psychological drama period film in Malayalam-language that was directed by Shaji N. Karun. It was produced by Pierre Assouline and co-produced by Mohanlal. The screenplay was written by Karun and Raghunath Paleri based on a story by Assouline. It features Mohanlal in the lead role, with Suhasini Maniratnam, Mattannur Sankarankutty Marar, Kalamandalam Gopi, Venmani Haridas, and Kukku Parameshwaram in supporting roles. The film's music was composed by Zakir Hussain.
Dr. K. Ayyappa Paniker, sometimes spelt "Ayyappa Panicker", was a Malayalam poet, literary critic, and an academic and a scholar in modern and post-modern literary theories as well as ancient Indian aesthetics and literary traditions. He was one of the pioneers of modernism in Malayalam poetry, where his seminal works like Kurukshethram (1960), is considered a turning point in Malayalam poetry. Many of Ayyappa Paniker's poems and his several essays were an important influence on later generations of Malayalam writers.
Randamoozham is a 1984 Indian Malayalam-language mythological drama novel written by the Indian author M. T. Vasudevan Nair, widely credited as his masterpiece. The work won the Vayalar Award, given for the best literary work in Malayalam, in 1985. It also won the Muttathu Varkey Award in 1994. The novel has been translated to multiple languages. It was translated into English as Second Turn by P. K. Ravindranath in 1997. Another English translation by Gita Krishnankutty published in 2013 is titled Bhima: Lone Warrior.
Kamala Das , popularly known by her one-time pen name Madhavikutty, was an Indian poet in English as well as an author in Malayalam from Kerala, India. Her popularity in Kerala is based chiefly on her short stories and autobiography, while her oeuvre in English, written under the name Kamala Das, is noted for the poems and explicit autobiography. She was also a widely read columnist and wrote on diverse topics including women's issues, child care, politics, etc. Her liberal treatment of female sexuality, marked her as an iconoclast in popular culture of her generation. On 31 May 2009, aged 75, she died at Jehangir Hospital in Pune.
Mammootty, is an Indian actor and film producer who works predominantly in Malayalam films. In 1972, he made his onscreen debut as an extra in K. S. Sethumadhavan's Anubhavangal Paalichakal while studying law in Maharaja's College. Since then he has acted in more than 400 films in Malayalam and other languages including Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Hindi and English films. After his debut, he appeared in an uncredited role in Kaalachakram (1973). In 1979, while he was practising law in Manjeri he was offered a pivotal role in M. T. Vasudevan Nair's Devalokam. However, this film was never released.
Thommanum Makkalum is a 2005 Indian Malayalam-language action comedy film directed by Shafi, written by Benny P. Nayarambalam, and produced by Lal under his production house Lal Creations. The film stars Mammootty, Lal, and Rajan P. Dev in the titular roles.
Renji Panicker is an Indian actor, scriptwriter, director, film producer, and journalist best known for his Malayalam films. He made his debut as a director with Bharatchandran IPS in 2005.
Pallavi Aiyar is an Indian journalist and author currently based in Japan. Previously, she was the Indonesia correspondent for The Hindu, Europe correspondent for the Business Standard and China bureau chief for The Hindu.
Thacholi Ambu is a 1978 Indian Malayalam-language historical drama film directed and produced by Navodaya Appachan under Navodaya Studio. It was the first anamorphic CinemaScope film in Malayalam. Starring Prem Nazir in the title role, Sivaji Ganesan, Ravikumar and Jayan. Made on a cost of ₹30 lakh, the film grossed ₹1 crore at the box office.
Josy Joseph is an Indian investigative journalist and author. He is the founder of Confluence Media, a platform-agnostic investigative journalism organization. He is an adjunt faculty at O. P. Jindal Global University
V. A. Shrikumar is an Indian ad film, feature film director and businessman. He has directed more than 400 commercials for various brands. He is the chairman and managing director of Push Integrated Communications, a marketing company. He directed his debut feature film Odiyan in 2018. Despite mixed reviews, it was a major commercial success at the box office, becoming one of the highest-grossing Malayalam films of all time. Before the arrival of K.G.F: Chapter 2, Odiyan was the holder of the first day's highest box office opener in Kerala, by collecting more than 7 crores.
