On Thursday November 5, 2015, Karan Bali will present “An American In Madras.” The program will begin at 6:00 p.m. and is free and open to the public.
Bali will provide introductory comments and show his documentary film on former Wheeling resident Ellis Dungan, An American in Madras. “Ellis Dungan’s fascinating story was one just waiting to be told,” according to Bali. “I’m surprised no one else did it earlier but I’m glad I could make this film and bring to light, however belated, the efforts and achievements of a true pioneer of the Tamil (and Indian) film industry.” The film shows an aspect of Dungan’s career that is unknown to most West Virginians, who would know his name mostly as a producer of regional documentary films.
Ellis Dungan was born in 1909 in Barton, Ohio, and studied at the University of Southern California before going to India in 1935. He stayed there for 15 years and made a name for himself in the Tamil film industry in South India, helping it in its developing years. In 1958, Dungan moved to Wheeling, where he produced and directed industrial, business, and public relations films through Ellis Dungan Productions. His regional films include Wild Wonderful West Virginia, Time’s Runnin’ Out, and High Speed Steel. He was also instrumental in producing For Liberty and Union, a film about West Virginia statehood which is shown daily at West Virginia Independence Hall, and Wheels to Progress, a film about Wheeling in 1959. Dungan lived in Wheeling until his death in 2001.
Indian filmmaker Karan Bali is a 1993 graduate of the Film and Television Institute of India. He became interested in the early history of cinema produced in the Tamil region of India and realized the contribution Ellis Dungan had made to change the nature of Tamil films. Through reading Ellis Dungan’s A Guide to Adventure: An Autobiography which he co-authored with Wheeling author Barbara Smik, Bali discovered that Dungan had given his collection of films, photographs, and papers to West Virginia Archives and History, where Bali found many of the materials he needed for his documentary. Bali has shown An American in Madras at many film festivals in India, as well as in London, New York, Seattle, and Wheeling. Karan Bali currently is working on a documentary on Byculla, a neighborhood in Bombay that at one time was a melting pot of Europeans, Anglo-Indians, Jews, Hindus, and other groups.
Due to construction at the State Capitol Complex, lectures attendees may park in the governor’s parking lot for the November 5 lecture and enter the Culture Center at the front of the building. The governor’s parking lot is on the south side of the Culture Center on Greenbrier Street across from Virginia Street.
For additional information, contact the Archives and History Library at (304) 558-0230.
