Castle

Gunasekhar

Gunasekhar is a Telugu Film Director and Screenwriter. Born on the 2nd of June,1964 in the coastal village of Narsipatnam in the Vizag district of Andhra Pradesh in India, he pursued his Bachelors in Commerce at Vishakhapatnam. Gunasekhar, being an avid reader and movie buff right from when he was in school, had keen interest in Telugu literature and also wrote a few short stories and novels. He is also a theatre enthusiast and took part in several plays, and worked alongside noteworthy Telugu playwrights. With the artistic love and great inclination towards the indian film industry, he then moved to Chennai to pursue the same. He started out as an Assistant Writer under Film Writer Kasi Viswanadh and then worked as an Assistant Director under veteran writer D.V.Narsaraju ,then under Director Kranthi Kumar and later went on to be the Associate Director for Ram Gopal Varma. He then made his debut with lathi(1992) as a director and story-screenplay writer ,he went on to win the prestigious AP State Nandi Award for the Best Directorial Debut for it. Lathi also won the AP State Awards in the categories of Cinematography and editing. He then made Sogasu Chooda Tharama(1995 ) starring Naresh and Indraja, the film not just garnered great critical acclaim but also impeccable response from the audience ,and then went on to win the AP State Nandi Awards in several categories like Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Screenplay, Best Film,etc. It is a film that is a part of the viewing curriculum in many famous dramatic and media institutions. Gunasekhar then made the Epic Ramayanam (1997 ), a fresh new take on the widely famous mythology, he made this one with a cast composing of all children in between the ages of 4-12years. It is with this film that Jr.NTR made his debut and played the role of Rama. This film too went on to win several State awards and also won the prestigious National Award ( Best Children's Film). Ramayanam was screened at the International Children's Film Festival of India (ICFFI) 1998. Gunasekhar then got the chance to direct Megastar Chiranjeevi in Choolani Vundi (1998 ) which turned out to be a massive blockbuster and stood out as the highest grosser in South India of that year. Gunasekhar is the first ever to introduce the DTS sound with this film in Andhra Pradesh. The film was later remade in Hindi as Calcutta Mail(2003) .Gunasekhar also worked with Chiranjeevi for the film Mrugaraju (2001). His Manoharam( 2000) starring actors Jagapati Babu and Laya made a mark in the hearts of the audience and won the AP State Nandi Award for Best story, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, Best Actress ,etc. Gunasekhar then set out to make Okkadu(2003) with Mahesh Babu, set in the backdrop of the old city of Hyderabad, the entire streets and the famous Charminar was replicated on a massive scale for this film. It went on to be the biggest blockbuster ever for Mahesh Babu and Gunasekhar. It is lauded as one among the Telugu Film Industry Hits and is regarded by many as a trendsetter. Gunasekhar was awarded the Filmfare (Best Director) and the film won several laurels in many categories setting a record at the state level for being the only film ever to win 8 Nandi Awards. Okkadu was remade in several other languages, as Ghilli(2004) in Tamil starring Vijay and as Ajay( 2006) in Kannada starring Puneet Rajkumar both became phenomenal hits.It was also remade in Hindi as Boney Kapoor's Tevar starring Arjun Kapoor and Sonakshi Sinha. Okkadu is among the films actively studied by film students in several film institutes. Mahesh-Gunasekhar duo went on to make consecutive films together in Telugu, Arjun(2005) and Sainikudu(2007). Madhura Meenakshi temple of the temple city of Madurai Tamil Nadu was replicated for the film Arjun spanning across 5 Acres in Hyderabad , the movie went on to be a hit, got MAA tv CineMAA awards for Best Director, Best Actor, a Filmfare (Best Supporting Actress) and also won the Nandi award in the categories of Art direction and best supporting actress.Arjun was screened at the International Film Festival of India (IFFI)2006. He then made Varudu (2010) starring Allu Arjun which won 3 Nandi Awards for Best VFX, Best Art Direction and Costumes, and Nippu (2012) starring Ravi Teja. It is to be noted that with the exception of one or two, all of his films won prestigious awards in diverse categories and remain noted among the critics. Gunasekhar's latest work is lauded as 'India's First Historical Stereoscopic 3D Film', it is the historical biopic of the 13th century Kakatiya Queen Rudhramadevi, said to be an inspiration to him from his childhood. Gunasekhar mentioned in several interviews of his that the history of Rani Rudhramadevi was a part of his Eight grade syllabus at school and that it etched a great mark of inspiration in his heart from that tender age ,with that he turned a producer to bring his dream to reality, under the banner Gunaa Teamworks. Anushka Shetty plays the titular role and Stylish star Allu Arjun plays the pivotal role of Gona Ganna Reddy in it. Rudhramadevi(2015) is the only historical film to have been made after about 3 decades in Telugu. The budget spans over 80 crores, marking it as the only Female-centric film to be ever made on such a scale in the history of indian cinema. Rudhramadevi opened to a massive craze worldwide in four languages Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Hindi.The awards and laurels for this memorable film of his started with the 'Delhi Telugu Academy' and the 'K.V.Reddy' Memorial awards.He was also awarded the famous Telugu daily,Sakshi Media Group's- 'Sakshi Excellence Award' in the field of direction for the year 2015, he then received MAAtv's 'CineMaa Award' for his work along with Anushka and Allu Arjun also bagging 'CineMaa' awards for their phenomenal performance in the film, they've also received Best Actress and Best Actor respectively on other prestigious accolades like the 'Filmfare' Awards and at international forums like 'SIIMA'. Apart from garnering critical appreciation the film stands as the highest grosser for a Female oriented film ever in South India and collected over 100 crores worldwide and crossed the $1Million mark in the overseas. Gunasekhar remains the only director in the recent era of telugu cinema to have directed diverse genres like Mythology and Historical apart from social films.

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