Veteran Director-Cinematographer A Vincent Passes Away

A Vincent, the veteran cinematographer-director passed away. The 88 year old was undergoing treatment for age-related health issues since last week. He is survived by wife Margaret and sons, popular cinematographers Jayanan Vincent and Ajayan Vincent. National Award winning art director Sabu Cyril is his nephew.

Vincent, who had won the prestigious J C Daniel award for his contributions to Indian cinema, learned the basics of photography from his father Aloshious Vincent, who was a small scale photographer. He later migrated to Chennai to learn cinematography. Vincent made his movie debut with the Telugu flick Brathuku Theruvu, in 1953.

He ventured into Malayalam movies with Ramu Karyat's National Award winning movie Neelakuyil, in 1954. Vincent is the first cinematographer of Malayalam cinema, who showed the courage to shoot in natural locations, instead of the artificial sets. He made his directorial debut with the first horror movie of Malayalam, Bhargavinilayam, in 1964.

The veteran filmmaker, later directed some popular movies, including Murappennu, Nadhi, Asuravithu, Thulabharam, Nakhangal etc. Vincent, who was fondly called as Vincent Mash by his contemporaries, also owns the credit of introducing the veteran writer-filmmaker M T Vasudevan Nair into the movie industry. M T made his movie debut with Vincent directed Murappennu.