Coordinates | 21°25′34″N157°48′44″N |
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name | Ram Gopal Varma |
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birth date | April 07, 1960 |
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birth place | Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India |
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birthname | Penmetsa Ram Gopal Varma |
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occupation | Film director, producer and writer |
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spouse | Mayawati (Current) |
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children | Revathi (Ex-Wife's) |
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yearsactive | 1989–present |
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inspired by | Ayn Rand, Friedrich Nietzsche, Satyendra (College Friend) |
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influenced | Puri Jagannadh, Krishnavamsi |
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website | http://rgvzoomin.com/ |
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imdb id | 0890060
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Ram Gopal Varma (
Telugu: రామ్ గోపాల్ వర్మ), better known as
RGV (born 7 April 1960) is an
Indian film director,
screenwriter and
producer. Varma has directed, written and produced films across multiple genres-
psychological thrillers,
underworld gang warfare, politician-criminal nexus, and
musicals in multiple languages.
''Shiva (1989 film)'' was his first film as a director and ''Dongala Mutta'' (2011) is his most recent one. He gained recognition in Hindi cinema, with the straight Hindi version of ''Shiva (1989 film)'' in (1990) and ''Rangeela (film)'' (1995). The next film he directed was ''Satya'' (1998), which won six Filmfare Awards, including the Critics Award for Best Film. ''Satya'', together with his 2002 film ''Company'' (which he directed and which won seven Filmfare Awards) and 2005 film ''D'' (which he produced), form an "Indian Gangster Trilogy".
Other acclaimed films that Varma directed include ''Kshana Kshanam'' (1991), ''Gaayam'' (1993), ''Anaganaga Oka Roju'' (1997), ''Kaun'' (1999), ''Jungle'' (2000), ''Bhoot'' (2003), ''Sarkar'' (2005), ''Sarkar Raj'' (2008), ''Rakta Charitra'' (2010) ''Katha Screenplay Darshakatvam Appalaraju'' (2011) and ''Dongala Mutta'' (2011).
His upcoming films include, Department (film) and Bezawada Rowdilu, starring Rana Daggubati and Naga Chaitanya respectively.
Early years
Ram Gopal Varma Penmetsa was born in
Hyderabad,
Andhra Pradesh, India to Krishnam Raju Penmetsa and Suryavathi Raju Penmetsa.
In an interview to ''Tehelka'', Varma talked about his relationship with his parents, and the reasons behind his decision to become a filmmaker-
Varma completed BE in civil engineering from V.R.Siddhartha Engineering College, Vijayawada. Even during this period, Varma remained a film buff, through his uncle. Varma would skip classes often and watch films instead. He would watch the same film repeatedly "just to watch certain scenes which interested him." According to him, that is how he learned film direction.
After a brief stint as a site engineer, for a hotel in Hyderabad, He then put his dreams on the back burner and decided to go to Nigeria to make some money. It was at this moment that he visited a video rental library in Hyderabad. He loved the idea and decided to start one of his own at Ameerpet in Hyderabad, through which he slowly developed connections with the film world.Without being successful as a fourth assistant director in B. Gopal's film, collector gari abbayi, Varma directly ventured into film direction, in Nagarjuna's 1989 film shiva.
Awards
Filmfare Awards
Filmfare Critics Award for Best Movie - ''Satya'' (1998)
Filmfare Best Story Award - ''Rangeela''
Filmfare Best Director Award (Telugu)
Shiva (1989 film)
Kshana Kshanam (1991)
Gaayam (1993)
Nandi Awards
Nandi Award for Best Director
''Shiva (1989 film)''
''Kshana Kshanam'' (1991)
''
Prema Kadha'' (1999)
Bollywood Awards
Bollywood Award for Best Director
''Satya'' (1998)
''Jungle'' (2000)
''Company'' (2002)
''Bhoot'' (2003)
Career in Telugu cinema
Before Varma started his film career in the
Telugu film industry, he lingered on the sets of films such as ''Raogaarillu'' and ''Collectorgari Abbai''. His father was a sound recordist at Annapurna Studios, Hyderabad which is owned by
Akkineni Nageswara Rao. Varma managed to meet Nagarjuna and narrated a scene to the actor which impressed him. The result of their collaboration was a film on the criminalization of student politics - ''
Shiva (1989 film)''. The film was a blockbuster with Varma demonstrating his technical expertise and story-telling skills. The success of the film in Telugu led to a Hindi remake with similar success.
Varma's next film was ''Kshana Kshanam'' with Venkatesh & Sridevi which got him noticed by Bollywood critics. The film was dubbed into Hindi as Hairaan. Then he made films such as ''Raatri'' and ''Antham''. While ''Gaayam'' with Jagapathi Babu & Anaganaga Oka Roju with J.D. Chakravarthy were successful, ''Govinda Govinda'' with Nagarjuna & Sridevi proved to be moderate at the box-office. During this period, Varma also produced films such as ''Money'' and ''Money Money (1995 film)'', and was the screen writer for Mani Ratnam's Tamil film Thiruda Thiruda.
Career in Hindi cinema
While Varma's first successful
Hindi film was the remake of ''
Siva''. His next film was
Drohi. The film that really put the spotlight on him was the blockbuster ''
Rangeela''. The film won
Filmfare Awards for Rahman and Shroff. The film, according to Varma, was dedicated to actress
Sridevi. His next film ''
Daud'' (1997), however, sank without a trace.
In 1998, Varma was an executive producer for ''Dil Se'', directed by Mani Ratnam and starring Shahrukh Khan, Manisha Koirala and Preity Zinta. The film won the NETPAC Award for Special Mention at the Berlin Film Festival, as well as two National Film Awards and six Filmfare Awards.
Indian Gangster Trilogy
In 1998 came his masterpiece, the critically acclaimed ''Satya'', a film based on the Mumbai underworld. A script written by Anurag Kashyap and Saurabh Shukla, music by Vishal Bharadwaj and Sandeep Chowta, acclaimed performances by J. D. Chakravarthy, Manoj Bajpai and Urmila Matondkar, and Varma's directorial and technical brilliance, contributed to a film that was a landmark. The film won six Filmfare Awards, including the Critics Award for Best Film.
In 2002 came his greatest commercial as well as critical success, ''Company'', again set against the backdrop of the Mumbai underworld, in which he cut off the song-and-dance sequences, a commonplace in Bollywood films at the time. It was based on the real-life underworld organization, the D-Company. The film won seven Filmfare Awards and earned him a Filmfare Best Director Award nomination. Mohanlal debuted in Bollywood with this film.
A prequel to ''Company'' was made in 2005, titled ''D'', produced by Varma and directed by Vishram Sawant. ''Satya'', ''Company'' and ''D'' are together considered an "Indian Gangster Trilogy". ''Satya'' and ''Company'', in particular, were cited by British director Danny Boyle as influences on his Academy Award winning film ''Slumdog Millionaire'' (2008), for their "slick, often mesmerizing portrayals of the Mumbai underworld", their display of "brutality and urban violence", and their gritty realism.
Experimental films
During the years between his "Indian Gangster Trilogy", from ''
Satya'' in 1998 to ''
D'' in 2005, Varma experimented with different film genres. In 1999, he directed ''
Kaun'', a
suspense thriller set entirely in one house and featuring only three actors, and ''
Mast'', a subversion of the Hindi Cinema masala genre. In 2000, he directed ''
Jungle'', a film set entirely in a
jungle, for which he was nominated for the
Star Screen Award for Best Director.
Following the success of ''Company'' in 2002, Varma's next film as director was ''Bhoot'' (2003), a psychological horror film, which was a major success. It starred Ajay Devgan and Urmila Matondkar, who earned a number of awards for her performance. Varma himself was nominated for the Filmfare Best Director Award for the film.
Following the success of ''Bhoot'', Varma produced two other experimental films: Sriram Raghavan's ''Ek Hasina Thi'' (2003), a psychological thriller, and Shimit Amin's ''Ab Tak Chhappan'' (2004), a film about an inspector in the Mumbai Encounter Squad famous for having killed 56 people in police encounters. In 2005, Varma was nominated for the Zee Cine Award for Best Producer of the Year.
Later films
Varma's next film as director was ''
Sarkar'', released in June 2005, starring
Amitabh Bachchan and his son
Abhishek Bachchan. Amitabh played the character of ''Sarkar'' who is a self-righteous and powerful businessman cum social worker, while Abhishek played his son in the film. ''Sarkar'' was a loose adaptation of
Mario Puzo's 1969 novel ''
The Godfather''. ''Sarkar'' went on to become a critically acclaimed box office hit.
In 2006, his next film as director was ''Shiva'', which premiered at the New York Asian Film Festival, where a retrospective featuring several of his previous films was also staged. Alongside ''Shiva'', the festival screened his earlier successful films ''Company'', ''Ek Hasina Thi'' and ''Ab Tak Chhappan''. While these three films were praised, ''Shiva'' was a critical and commercial failure. In 2007, he directed the ambitious ''Sholay'' remake, ''Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag'', as well as ''Darling'', both of which were critical and box office disasters.
He was written off by the media and public until June 2008, when he reclaimed, to some extent, his lost reputation with his much hyped venture, ''Sarkar Raj'', a sequel to ''Sarkar''; it was an average and met with good reviews. The primary cast featured Amitabh and Abhishek Bachchan reprising their roles from the prequel alongside Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. Supriya Pathak, Tanisha Mukherjee and Ravi Kale also reappeared in their respective roles from ''Sarkar''. Unlike ''Sarkar'', which was loosely adapted from ''The Godfather'', ''Sarkar Raj'' had an original plot.
''Phoonk'' (2008) was of the horror film genre and met with mixed reviews, with more of them leaning to the negative side. However, the film was a major hit in comparison to its minuscule budget. Agyaat, which released on 7 August 2009, was again a commercial as well as critical failure. Next was Rann, a film about the media. It had Amitabh Bachchan, Kannada actor Sudeep, Ritesh Deshmukh and Paresh Rawal. Released on 29 January 2010, the film was praised by some critics, but was a commercial disaster. Then he began the promotion works for Phoonk 2, a sequel of Phoonk, which was released on April 16, 2010.
Next came Rakta Charitra, a trilingual in Telugu, Tamil and Hindi languages. This movie is based upon the faction backdrop of the Rayalaseema in Andhra Pradesh. As the entire film lasted for about 5 hours, the film was released in two parts, with in a gap of three months. The film depicts the life of slain political leader Paritala Ravindra, played by Vivek Oberoi, with Tamil actor Surya Sivakumar, enacting the role of Maddelacheruvu Suri, Shatrughan Sinha, playing N. T. Rama Rao. Radhika Apte and Priyamani star in other pivotal roles. The film has released to a good opening following Varma's clever pre-release marketing using the controversy surrounding the main characters to his advantage. A fortnight after the film's release, Maddelacheruvu Suri was shot fatally. Though the movie could not get a good reputation in Hindi and Tamil, it gained positive reviews in Telugu and the critics quoted "RGV is back".
Varma has also announced another horror film titled 'Warning'. This film will be the first 3D horror film made in India and is reported to have Ritesh Deshmukh in a significant role.
Varma latest release had comedian Sunil as the lead. The film was titled ''Katha Screenplay Darshakatvam Appalaraju'' (Story Screenplay Direction AppalRaju, when translated to English). This is said to be a satire on Telugu Film Industry mainly targeting directors. A song in the film covered almost all directors like Raghavendra Rao, E.V.V, Kodi Ramakrishna, B.Gopal, S.S Rajamouli, Sreenu Vaitla, Puri Jagannadh, Vinayak and Boyapati Seenu. On 25 February, 2011 Ram Gopal Varma reportedly filed a complaint against a Telugu News Channel at Hyderabad.
RGV has roped in Amitabh Bachchan for the lead role in his yet to be filmed movie ''Department'', the plot of which shall revolve around the internal politics of te police department. He has been quoted saying that this film may be considered as "the other side of Company". Sanjay Dutt and Rana Daggubati are reportedly going to play supporting roles. It is a much anticipated collaboration of Sanjay Dutt with the director after their earlier venture "Daud".
Autobiography
Varma wrote an autobiography titled ''Na Ishtam'', which discusses his thoughts and opinions.
Filmography
As director
As producer
As writer
See also
References
External links
Ram Gopal Varma's Official Blog
Ram Gopal Varma profile at Gomolo.in
Interview with RGV
Ram Gopal Varma At Taj by Chance
Timesofindia.indiatimes.com
Category:Indian atheists
Category:Hindi-language film directors
Category:Telugu film directors
Category:Living people
Category:1962 births
Category:People from Hyderabad, India
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te:రామ్ గోపాల్ వర్మ