Documentary on Vijay Amritraj to be Made

India-West News Desk

LOS ANGELES, CA – Indian tennis star Vijay Amritraj, now 68, is going to get immortalized on celluloid. His exploits in the 1970s and 1980s is going to be recorded in a documentary to be directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Sami Khan. Amritraj’s son Prakash will be one of the co-executive producers.

Khan said, “Amritraj was a pioneer for South Asian athletes, and I know our film will have urgent resonance today.”

Of course this won’t be Amritraj’s first appearance on screen. He has acted in  the James Bond outing ‘Octopussy’ and in TV shows, including ‘What a Country!’ The documentary is expected to take viewers into Amritraj’s childhood in Bangalore, offer glimpses of his famous family and of course his tennis triumphs which in his heyday included victories over Jimmy Connors, Bjorn Borg, and John McEnroe.

Amritraj as a public opinion leader had spoken against apartheid in South Africa, and worked as a United Nations Messenger of Peace.

“He’s been my greatest example of what it is to be a man and a hero. It’s a dream to bring his story to the screen with Calabasas Films and the brilliant Sami Khan at the helm,” Prakash Amritraj told the media, adding, “For so long people of color have been told ‘you can’t,’ and ‘you won’t,’ Vijay has always been a symbol of ‘I can’ and ‘I will.’ And he did it keeping God in his heart, and his family and India on his back.”