Mani Ratnam

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Mani Ratnam (born June 2, 1956) is a critically acclaimed Tamil Indian film director, writer and producer.

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early life 1.2 Career 2 Filmography 2.1 Directorial Credits 2.2 Non-Director Credits 3 Stage 4 Family 5 See also 6 References 7 External links

Biography

Early life

Ratnam was born to G. Subramaniam on June 2, 1956, in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India. After graduating with a degree in commerce from Madras University and an MBA from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, he embarked on a career as a management consultant before becoming a filmmaker. He got into film direction with the help of his late brother, film producer G. Venkateswaran.

Career

Mani Ratnam's films often feature realistic, contemporary themes and complex plots. With a career spanning over two decades, he has garnered high acclaim and has been praised for handling serious issues whilst retaining a high entertainment factor in his films. Familial and marital hardships, terrorism, love, class and religious conflict, war, politics, adoption, history and disability are just some of the socio-political issues to have been featured in his films. His movies are generally made in the Tamil language, but are usually also dubbed into other languages like Telugu and Hindi owing to their national appeal. He has also made films in other languages like Hindi, Telugu and Kannada. His first movie was Pallavi Anu Pallavi in 1983 starring Anil Kapoor Widely known for his ability to tread the middle way between artistic cinema and commercial cinema, Ratnam's movies are further noted for their brilliance in technical aspects like art direction, cinematography and background score. His work has come to be recognised nationally and internationally, and in 2002, he was awarded the Padma Shri.

In 1994, a retrospective of his Tamil films was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). His movie Nayagan was part of Time Magazine's All-Time 100 Movies issued in 2005.^[1][2]

The characteristic elements of Mani Ratnam's films include memorable music by notable Indian composers Ilaiyaraaja and A. R. Rahman, a strong story line, sharp dialogue and innovative cinematography and art direction. He has worked with the best cinematographers in the country - notably P. C. Sriram, Balu Mahendra, Santosh Sivan, Ravi K. Chandran, Rajiv Menon and the likes.

Filmography

The following is the list of movies directed by Mani Ratnam. For a lot of these movies, Mani Ratnam is also credited for the Story & Screenplay:

Directorial Credits

Year	Film	Language	Cast	Music Director	Notes
1983	Pallavi Anu Pallavi	Kannada	Anil Kapoor, Lakshmi	Ilaiyaraaja	Dubbed into Tamil as Oh! Priya Priya
1985	Unaru	Malayalam	Mohanlal	Ilaiyaraaja
1985	Pagal Nilavu	Tamil	Murali, Revathi Menon, Radhika Sarath Kumar, Sathyaraj	Ilaiyaraaja
1985	Idaya Kovil	Tamil	Mohan, Radha, Ambika, Goundamani	Ilaiyaraaja
1986	Mouna Raagam	Tamil	Mohan, Revathi, Karthik	Ilaiyaraaja	Dubbed into Telugu as 'Mouna Raagam
1987	Nayagan	Tamil	Kamal Haasan, Saranya, Nasser, Janagaraj	Ilaiyaraaja	Dubbed into Telugu as Velu Nayakan Dubbed into Telugu as Nayakudu
1988	Agni Natchathiram	Tamil	Prabhu, Karthik, Vijayakumar, Prabhu Deva, Amala, Janagaraj, Jayachitra	Ilaiyaraaja	Dubbed into Telugu as Gharshana
1989	Geethanjali	Telugu	Nagarjuna, Girija, Vijayakumar	Ilaiyaraaja	Dubbed into Tamil as Idhayathai Thirudathey Dubbed into Malayalam as Geethanjali
1990	Anjali	Tamil	Raghuvaran, Revathi, Prabhu, Tarun Kumar, Shamili, Shruti, Saranya	Ilaiyaraaja	Dubbed into Telugu as Anjali
1991	Thalapathi	Tamil	Rajinikanth, Mammooty, Arvind Swamy, Amrish Puri, Sobhana, Bhanupriya, Srividya, Geetha, Jaishankar	Ilaiyaraaja	Dubbed into Telugu as Dalapati Dubbed into Hindi as Dal-pati
1992	Roja	Tamil	Arvind Swamy, Madhubala, Pankaj Kapoor, Nasser, Janagaraj	A. R. Rahman	Dubbed into English as The Rose Dubbed into Hindi, Telugu, Malayalam and Marathi as Roja
1993	Thiruda Thiruda	Tamil	Prashanth, Anand, Heera Rajgopal, Anu Agarwal, Balasubrahmanyam	A. R. Rahman	Dubbed into Hindi as Chor Chor Dubbed into Telugu as Donga Donga
1995	Bombay	Tamil	Arvind Swamy, Manisha Koirala, Nasser, Prakash Raj	A. R. Rahman	Dubbed into Hindi and Telugu as Bombay
1997	Iruvar	Tamil	Mohanlal, Aishwarya Rai, Prakash Raj, Madhubala, Tabu, Revathi, Gouthami, Nasser	A. R. Rahman	Dubbed into Telugu as Iddaru
1998	Dil Se	Hindi	Shah Rukh Khan, Manisha Koirala, Preity Zinta	A. R. Rahman	Dubbed into Tamil as Uyire Dubbed into Telugu as Prema Tho
2000	Alaipayuthey	Tamil	Madhavan, Shalini, Arvind Swamy, Kushboo, Vivek, Sukumari, Lalitha	A. R. Rahman	Dubbed into English as Waves Dubbed into Telugu as Sakhi
2002	Kannathil Muthamittal	Tamil	Madhavan, Simran, Nandita Das, Keerthana, Prakash Raj, Pasupathy	A. R. Rahman	Dubbed into English as A Peck on the Cheek Dubbed into Telugu as Amrutha
2004	Aayitha Ezhuthu	Tamil	Madhavan, Surya Sivakumar, Siddharth Narayan, Meera Jasmine, Esha Deol, Trisha, Bharathiraja	A. R. Rahman	Dubbed into Telugu as Yuva
2004	Yuva	Hindi	Ajay Devgan, Abhishek Bachchan, Vivek Oberoi, Rani Mukherjee, Esha Deol, Kareena Kapoor, Om Puri	A. R. Rahman
2007	Guru	Hindi	Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Madhavan, Vidya Balan, Mallika Sherawat, Mithun Chakraborty	A. R. Rahman	Dubbed into Tamil as Guru Dubbed into Telugu as Gurukanth
2008	Lajjo	Hindi	Aamir Khan, Kareena Kapoor	A. R. Rahman

Non-Director Credits

Mani Ratnam established Madras Talkies for film production during the shoot of Iruvar. Mani Ratnam had earlier produced Nayakan, Roja and Thiruda Thiruda under his personal name. All movies directed by Mani Ratnam subsequent to Iruvar has been produced through Madras Talkies. Apart from production, Mani Ratnam also has written story and screenplay for movies directed by others.

• Indira (1996) - Screenplay (Movie was directed by his wife Suhasini)
• Gayam (1993) - Story & Screenplay (Telugu Movie)
• Aasai (1995) - Producer
• Nerrukku Ner (1997) - Producer (Madras Talkies)
• Dumm Dumm Dumm (2001) - Story & Screenplay
• Saathiya (2002) - Screenplay (Movie is a re-make of Alaipayuthey and was directed by his assistant Shaad Ali) and Producer (Madras Talkies)
• Five Star (2003) - Producer (Madras Talkies)

Stage

• Netru, Indru, Naalai (2006)

Family

• Mani's father Gopal Ratnam Iyer was a film producer.
• Mani's brother G. Venkateswaran, popularly known as G.V. was also a film producer who committed suicide.
• Mani married to actress Suhasini, niece of Kamal Haasan and they have a 15-year old son Nandan.
• Mani co-founded and co-runs the independent production company Madras Talkies along with his brother G. Srinivasan.

See also

• List of movies by Mani Ratnam featuring A R Rahman

References

Wikipedia information about Mani Ratnam This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Mani Ratnam". It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer). Help contribute to Americola and edit this article.