Dean, Prof: Direction & Screenplay Writing
Formally trained in philosophy at the Madras Christian College, with a M. Phil research degree in the philosophy of language, Venkatesh Chakravarthy branched out into the field of filmmaking after a short teaching stint at his alma mater. Gaining sufficient experience as a production executive in Bollywood and as an assistant director & co-script writer in Tamil and Malayalam cinema, he joined the Department of Direction & Screenplay Writing, Film & Television Institute of Tamilnadu, as a member of its faculty. Five years later, after contributing his part to the design of the first Bachelor’s Degree Course on Visual Communication in the region at Loyola College, Madras, he entered the realm of television production. He has about 90-hours of edited length in terms of high quality television programming to his credit. The most significant being the several episodes he scripted, directed and edited for the highly successful primetime Hindi serial Sangursh on the National Network of Doordharshan (before the advent of Satellite Television) and the first Mega Serial in Tamil Paramapadham consisting of 150-episodes, produced by UTV, Bombay.
He worked as the Chief Director of this entirely multi-camera online production with V. Manikandan of Om Shanti Om fame, an erstwhile student of his functioning as the Chief Cameraman. His Chitram Pesuthadi, a seventeen episode serial engaging in a critical analysis of landmark films of Tamil Cinema telecast in the metro channel of Doordharshan won a lot of accolades from the peers of the Tamil film industry. Later he worked as the First A.D. in Kamal Hassan’s magnum opus Marudhanayagam and then went to Malaysia to teach the first post graduate course in Screen Studies in that region at the Science University of Malaysia, Penang.
On his return he wrote a critically acclaimed play Mirror, which has been performed in theatre festivals and workshops in Chennai, Bangalore, Bombay, Delhi, Ahemadabad and abroad, specifically the United Kingdom. This was followed by his well received feature length documentary film known as Chennai: The Split City. Before moving to the Ramanaidu Film School, he worked as the Executive Producer of an Indian English feature film Framed written and directed by Chetan Shah of Rawfilms; and as a professor at the Mindscreen Film Institute founded by the ace cinematographer, Rajiv Menon.
Over the last two decades, he has been writing continuously both in Tamil and English, particularly on the Tamil Cinema. His articles and essays have been published in refereed academic journals both in India and abroad apart from leading newspapers and magazines in Tamilnadu.
Vedam [2010], both critically acclaimed and a box-office hit, directed by Krish, utilised his services as a script consultant.This is the first time that Telugu film industry saw a need for this.
