Film director and producer Muktha Srinivasan died in Chennai on Tuesday at the age of 88, The Hindu reported.

Srinivasan’s first film Mudhalali, released in 1957, won the National Award for the best feature film in Tamil that year. He directed several films starring some of the best-known actors in Tamil cinema, such as Sivaji Ganesan, Gemini Ganesan, J Jayalalithaa, Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan.

Srinivasan started producing films with his elder brother Muktha V Ramaswamy under the banner of Muktha Films in 1961. Muktha Films produced the landmark 1987 film Nayakan by Mani Ratnam, which is one of only two Indian films listed by Time magazine in the Best 100 Films of All Time.

Muktha Srinivasan produced and directed nearly 50 films.

He won several state and central government awards for his work. He also wrote dozens of books and short stories about cinema, history and science in both English and Tamil. In 1994, he published an encyclopaedia on Tamil cinema, titled Tamil Thiraipada Varalaru.