Ganapathi Venkataramana Iyer (3 September 1917 – 21 December 2003) was an

Indian film The cinema of India, consisting of motion pictures made by the Indian film industry, has had a large effect on world cinema since the second half of the 20th century. Indian cinema is made up of various film industries, each focused on pr ...

director and actor. He was nicknamed "Kannada Chitra Bheeshma". His film '' Adi Shankaracharya'' (1983) won four

National Film Award The National Film Awards are awards for artistic and technical merit given for "Excellence within the Cinema of India, Indian film industry". Established in 1954, it has been administered, along with the International Film Festival of India ...

, including Best Film, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography and Best Audiography. His film

Swami Vivekananda Swami Vivekananda () (12 January 1863 – 4 July 1902), born Narendranath Datta, was an Indian Hindus, Hindu monk, philosopher, author, religious teacher, and the chief disciple of the Indian mystic Ramakrishna. Vivekananda was a major figu ...

(1998) was nominated in the Best Film category at the Bogotá Film Festival, for which

Mithun Chakraborty Mithun Chakraborty (born Gouranga Chakraborty; 16 June 1950) is an Indian actor, film producer, screenwriter, entrepreneur and politician who predominantly works in Hindi cinema, Hindi and Cinema of West Bengal, Bengali cinema. In a career spa ...

won the national award for Best Supporting Actor.

Early life

He was born in 1917 in a

Tamil Tamil may refer to: People, culture and language * Tamils, an ethno-linguistic group native to India, Sri Lanka, and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka ** Myanmar or Burmese Tamils, Tamil people of Ind ...

brahmin Brahmin (; ) is a ''Varna (Hinduism), varna'' (theoretical social classes) within Hindu society. The other three varnas are the ''Kshatriya'' (rulers and warriors), ''Vaishya'' (traders, merchants, and farmers), and ''Shudra'' (labourers). Th ...

family in Nanjangud of

Mysore Mysore ( ), officially Mysuru (), is a city in the southern Indian state of Karnataka. It is the headquarters of Mysore district and Mysore division. As the traditional seat of the Wadiyar dynasty, the city functioned as the capital of the ...

district.

Career

He started his career at the age of eight when he joined the

Gubbi Veeranna Gubbi Hampanna Veeranna (1891 – 1972) was an Indian theatre director. He was one of the pioneers and most prolific contributors to Kannada theatre. He established the drama company, ''Gubbi Sree Channabasaveshwara Nataka Company'', which play ...

theatre group. His first role as an actor in cinema was in the film ''

Radha Ramana Radha Ramana () is one of the three combined forms of the Hindu deities Radha and Krishna. The other two forms are Banke Bihari and Radha-Vallabha. Radha Ramana is typically adorned with feathers, a crown, a yellow dress, and a shining '' vaija ...

''. Besides this he acted in a number of other movies such as '' Mahakavi Kalidasa'', ''Sodhari'', ''Hemavati'', ''Hari Bhaktha'' and '' Bedara Kannapa''. He is credited with providing breaks to two of the greatest

Kannada Kannada () is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly in the state of Karnataka in southwestern India, and spoken by a minority of the population in all neighbouring states. It has 44 million native speakers, and is additionally a ...

actors,

Dr. Rajkumar Singanalluru Puttaswamaiah Muthuraj (24 April 1929 – 12 April 2006), better known by his stage name Dr. Rajkumar, was an Indian actor and singer who worked in Kannada cinema. Regarded as one of the greatest and versatile actors in the his ...

and Narasimha Raju in the movie Bedara Kannappa. Though Raj Kumar had acted in a single scene in a movie previously, the movie Bedara Kannappa where Mr Iyer cast him as the hero, is where he got his break and is regarded generally as his first movie. Iyer also produced the critically acclaimed movie Vamsha Vriksha. Based on an acclaimed novel by S L Bhairappa, it was jointly directed by B V Karanth and

Girish Karnad Girish Karnad (19 May 1938 – 10 June 2019) was an Indian playwright, actor, film director, Kannada writer, and a Jnanpith awardee, who predominantly worked in Kannada, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Marathi films. His rise as a playwr ...

. He soon started directing his own movies. The movie ''Hamsageethe'' (music by Dr. Balamuralikrishna, B. V. Karanth and T.G. Lingappa) was well received and made him famous. Iyer wrote scripts, lyrics and produced and directed many commercial

movies. Iyer's biggest effort was '' Ranadheera Kanteerava''. He continued to make commercial movies until 1970. In his younger days, he was committed to

Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2October 186930January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India's independence from British ...

and his ideals. He stopped wearing footwear from the day Gandhi died and never wore them again. He also wore hand-spun clothes colloquially called "Khadi" as was advocated by Gandhi. He was proficient in both

and

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

and was soon to make the first movie in Sanskrit, about the famous philosopher '' Adi Shankaracharya'' (1983). The movie received the

National Film Awards The National Film Awards are awards for artistic and technical merit given for "Excellence within the Cinema of India, Indian film industry". Established in 1954, it has been administered, along with the International Film Festival of India ...

for Best Film, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography and

Audiography Audiography ("writing sound") within Indian-style filmmaking, is the audio engineering performed by the sound department of a film or TV production; this includes sound recording, editing, mixing and sound design (formerly sound effects laying) b ...

. It is believed that the movie made a great impact on Iyer. He later made a film on

Madhvacharya Madhvacharya (; ; 1199–1278 CE or 1238–1317 CE), also known as Purna Prajna () and Ānanda Tīrtha, was an Indian philosopher, theologian and the chief proponent of the ''Dvaita'' (dualism) school of Vedanta. Madhva called his philosophy ...

in Kannada and

Ramanuja Ramanuja ('; Middle Tamil: Rāmāṉujam; Classical Sanskrit: Rāmānuja; 1077 – 1157), also known as Ramanujacharya, was an Indian Hindu philosopher, guru and social reformer. He is one of the most important exponents of the Sri Vaishnavi ...

charya in Tamil. He also made a remarkable Sanskrit movie ''

Bhagavad Gita The Bhagavad Gita (; ), often referred to as the Gita (), is a Hindu texts, Hindu scripture, dated to the second or first century BCE, which forms part of the Hindu epic, epic poem Mahabharata. The Gita is a synthesis of various strands of Ind ...

'' (1993), which won Best Film at the

of 1993. The film was also nominated for Best Film at the

Bogotá Bogotá (, also , , ), officially Bogotá, Distrito Capital, abbreviated Bogotá, D.C., and formerly known as Santa Fe de Bogotá (; ) during the Spanish Imperial period and between 1991 and 2000, is the capital city, capital and largest city ...

Film Festival. He produced ''Natyarani Shanthala'', a historical television series on the

Hoysala The Hoysala Kingdom was a kingdom originating from the Indian subcontinent that ruled most of what is now Karnataka, India, Karnataka, parts of Tamilnadu and South-Western Telangana between the 11th and the 14th centuries Common Era, CE. The c ...

Jain queen Shanthala, who was married to a

Vaishnava Vaishnavism () ), also called Vishnuism, is one of the major Hindu traditions, that considers Vishnu as the sole supreme being leading all other Hindu deities, that is, '' Mahavishnu''. It is one of the major Hindu denominations along wit ...

King. It was re-made in

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

as well as in Kannada. It was based on several works by Samethanahalli Rama Rao in Kannada. He later went on to make a movie ''

''. It was an attempt to portray

, realistically. For this film

won a national award for Best Supporting Actor.

played Shri Ramkrishna Paramhansa. Though it had many famous actors such as

Hema Malini Hema Malini Dharmendra Deol (born 16 October 1948; ) is an Indian actress, director, producer, and politician who is currently serving as a member of the Lok Sabha from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), representing Mathura constituency since 2 ...

and Sarvadaman Banerjee, the movie failed commercially. He was planning a film based on the

Hindu Hindus (; ; also known as Sanātanīs) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism, also known by its endonym Sanātana Dharma. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pp. 35–37 Historically, the term has also be ...

epic ''

Ramayana The ''Ramayana'' (; ), also known as ''Valmiki Ramayana'', as traditionally attributed to Valmiki, is a smriti text (also described as a Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epic) from ancient India, one of the two important epics ...

'', with

Sanjay Dutt Sanjay Balraj Dutt (born 29 July 1959) is an Indian actor, playback singer and film producer who works in Hindi cinema in addition to a few Telugu, Kannada, Tamil, Punjabi films. Dutt has won several accolades and acted in over 160 films. ...

playing the role of

Ravana According to the Mahakavya, Hindu epic, ''Ramayana'', Ravana was a kingJustin W. Henry, ''Ravana's Kingdom: The Ramayana and Sri Lankan History from Below'', Oxford University Press, p.3 of the island of Lanka, in which he is the chief antag ...

, before his sudden death on 21 December 2003 at the age of 87. His last rites took place at his Bharadhwaja Ashrama, near Dodda Aladamara, on the outskirts of Bangalore, near Kengeri.

Filmography

Director, Writer and producer

Actor

* ''

'' (1943) * '' Bedara Kannappa'' (1954) * '' Sodari'' (1955) * ''Bhakta Mallikarjuna'' (1955) * ''Sadarame'' (1956) * '' Jagajyothi Basveshwara'' (1959) * '' Ranadheera Kanteerava'' (1960) * ''Kantheredu Nodu'' (1961) * '' Bhoodana'' (1962) * ''Vamsha Vriksha'' (1971) * ''Hemavathi'' (1977)

Awards

1983 1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call. Events January * January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to TCP/IP is officially completed (this is considered to be the beginning of the ...

** Best Film: '' Adi Shankaracharya'' ** Best Screenplay: '' Adi Shankaracharya'' *

1993 The United Nations General Assembly, General Assembly of the United Nations designated 1993 as: * International Year for the World's Indigenous People The year 1993 in the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands had only 364 days, since its ...

** Best Film: ''

'' *1993: Bhagavad Gita – nominated for Best Film at the Bogotá Film Festival in Golden Precolumbian Circle. ** Filmfare Award for Best Director – Kannada: '' Hamsa Geethe''- 1976 ** Filmfare Award for Best Film – Kannada: '' Vamsha Vriksha''- 1972

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Iyer, G. V. Iyer, GV Iyer, GV Iyer, GV Iyer, GV Male actors from Mysore Kannada screenwriters Filmfare Awards South winners Indian Sanskrit scholars Male actors in Kannada cinema Writers from Mysore 20th-century Indian male actors Film producers from Karnataka Indian male film actors Tamil screenwriters 20th-century Indian dramatists and playwrights Film directors from Karnataka Screenwriters from Karnataka Best Original Screenplay National Film Award winners Directors who won the Best Feature Film National Film Award 20th-century Indian screenwriters