Rajiv Anchal

Rajiv Anchal
രാജീവ് അഞ്ചൽ

Rajiv Anchal (Malayalam: രാജീവ് അഞ്ചൽ) is a film director, screenwriter, and sculptor from Kerala. He has directed eight feature films. His movies have lately been based in the United States.

Anchal brought Malayalam cinema into the platform of Oscar first through his magnum opus Guru, which is a symbolic and metaphorical movie about the blind faith of humankind. Guru was officially the Indian submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1997. Of late, he has based his movies in the United States. He is the life member of the International Film and Television Club of Asian Academy of Film & Television. In the international film industry also he got recognition for his work. His Beyond the Soul won three awards at the New York International Independent Film & Video Festival: Best Director, Best Screenplay and Grand Jury Prize for Best Feature Film in 2003. Rajiv Anchal is known for his gritty, meticulous film making style and is widely considered one of the most prominent directors of the time.

Born December 20, 1956, at Alencherry, Yeroor Panchayath, Anchal, Kollam District, Kerala State as son of late K. N. Vidyadharan and Smt. Ponnamma.

From childhood he had the passion for sculpture. After completing schooling from Yeroor Government high school and pre-degree from St. John's College, Anchal went to Trivandrum Fine Arts College for fulfilling his dreams. At the age of 21 he made his remark in his field and won recognition as a sculptor by receiving state award for sculpture from the Kerala Lalitha Kala academy in 1997 for Independent Sculptures all over Kerala including Sakambhari—a 40-foot-high statue at Alleppey, and many temple wall murals at different temples in Kerala.

He is closely associated with Karunakara Guru, Santhigiri Ashram, and Thiruvananthapuram. Rajiv Anchal is a follower of this Guru and his unique, secular ideology and is closely associated with the Ashram. He is an active advisory board member of Santigiri Ashram and now residing at Pothencode, near the Asharam with his family, wife Padmam, daughter Gargi and son Padmajan.

As an art director

Rajiv Anchal entered the Malayalam film industry as an art director and production designer with acclaimed film director Lenin Rajendran through his film Chillu in 1980. Then he worked in so many films like Abhayam, Yemanam, Panchavadipalam, Ayyer the great, Njan Gandharvan as an art director as well as production designer.

He won Kerala state film award for best art director for the movie Njan Gandharvan in 1990.

As a film maker

Along with the art direction, Rajiv Anchal started independent film direction. Enikkum enikkum idaykku (1985) was his directorial debut in Malayalam. But, that film was unfortunately unreleased. Ammaanamkili (1986) done by Rajiv Anchal also failed to run in theatres. Same time Ammanamkili got best children’s film award and master Kiren, who acted in that movie selected as best child artist that year. His next film was Thankakolus (1989).

Rajiv Anchal established as a film maker after directing the romantic comedy thriller butterflies starring Mohanlal and Aishwarya in 1993, a mega hit at the Kerala Box office. Kashmeeram (1994), starring Suresh Gopi, Ratheesh and Priya Raman was his next successful movie in Malayalam. It was dubbed and released in Telugu as New Delhi. For Kashmeeram he won the film critics award for the best director that year.

In 1997 he made his master piece Guru. Guru is a fantasy movie on the utopian concept. It is highly symbolic and makes a statement on terrorism and the evils of the world. Guru can be considered as one of the best shot Malayalam movies as well as technically sound one. The use of actual Hollywood sets for filming the virtual world is one of the highlights of the film. Mohanlal played the lead role. Nedumudi Venu, Srinivasan, Suresh Gopi, Sithara, Kaveri and Sreelakshmi in supporting roles.

The film was chosen as India's official entry to the Oscars to be considered for nomination in the Best Foreign Film category for 1997. To squeeze it into the foreign category section, the film has been pared down to 90 minutes. The film has bombed, as yet scraping together only one-third of the Rs 30 million expended on it .

Then he has migrated to international film industry .

His first English film Beyond The Soul, won three awards at the New York International Independent Film & Video Festival-2003-USA : Best Director, Best Screenplay and Grand Jury Prize for Best Feature Film in 2003, Best actor-Thampi Antony (Honolulu Film Festival-2003-USA).

As a sculptor

In between the busy film works, Rajiv Anchal never gave up his passion towards sculpture. From teenage days he started making sculptures and mural paintings for temples and cultural organizations. He was associated with the construction of lotus Parnashala at Shantigiri ashram . Now he is engaged with a huge Jatayu sculpture on Jatayuppara in Chadayamangalam Kerala. It has 200 ft length, 150 ft breadth and 75 ft height.

Rajiv's complete list of films directed, art directed and the movies for which he has created the script is available from the Malayalam Movie and Music Database.[1]

References

  1. ↑ "Profile of Malayalam Director Rajeev Anchal". En.msidb.org. 2009-01-26. Retrieved 2015-12-18.

External links

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