Ram Gopal Varma Biography

Penmatsa Ram Gopal Varma is a trend-setting director of Indian Cinema. 'RGV' as popularly addressed, has excelled dynamically in direction, screenwriting and production in both Bollywood and Tollywood. RGV is also known to have given a platform to various young talents working on and off screen. RGV's movies had been screened at various international film festivals.

Varma, an introvert in his school days was a useless child for his parents. Varma had admitted that as a child he was only interested in studying the human behavior. He looked up to the bullies in his class and considered them as heroes as they had guts to fight. Then he got fascinated to people with larger than life attitude. He used to avoid remaining in groups and liked studying his own nature. This was his primary motivation to be a filmmaker. Varma finished his BE in Civil Engineering from V.R.Siddhartha Engineering College, Vijayawada. Varma, a movie buff, used to skip classes to watch films. He would repeatedly watch the films just to see how certain scenes which he liked were shot. That is how the maestro learned the direction business. He worked as a site engineer for Krishna Oberoi Hotel in Hyderabad but then decided to go to Nigeria to earn some money. But destiny had some other plans. He by chance visited a video rental library in Hyderabad and was smitten by the idea and decided to open one of his own in Ameerpet, Hyderabad. Through it he slowly developed connections with the film world.

He worked as a fourth assistant director in B.Gopal's film Collector Gari Abbai and then Rao Gaari Illu. Varma's father was a sound recordist at the Annapurna Studios, Hyderabad. Varma managed to meet Nagarjuna and narrated a scene to him. It highly impressed the actor and got Varma a chance to direct a movie- 'Siva'. It became a blockbuster which was made into a Hindi remake. RGV touched the glory of fame with his 1995 movie 'Rangeela'. The film got two Filmfare awards. His next movie 'Daud' did not came to notice though. Varma was an executive producer for 'Dil Se' (1998).

The same year he made a Master piece 'Satya' which got rave reviews for its crime portrayal. It was scripted by Anurag Kashyap and Saurabh Shukla. The film won six Filmfare awards including Critics Award for Best Film. In 2002, he made 'Company', which was also based on Mumbai Underworld. This movie got both critical and commercial success. It won seven Filmfare Awards. A prequel to Company was made in 2005 as 'D', directed by Vishram Sawant, produced by Varma. These 3 movies are considered as 'Indian Gangster Trilogy'. RGV has won a National Film Award for producing 'Shool' for which he also wrote the screenplay.

In between, Varma experimented with different genres directing movies like 'Daud' a romantic thriller, 'Mast', 'Jungle', 'Bhoot' etc. He also produced different movies like 'Ek Hasina Thi' (2003) and 'Ab Tak Chhappan' (2004) for budding directors. RGV's 'Sarkar' was critically acclaimed but later 'Nishabd' and 'Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag' bombed at the box office. Then the release of 'Sarkar Raaj' (2008), brought back to some extent, the lost reputation of Ram Gopal Varma. His later releases 'Phoonk', 'Agyaat', 'Rann', 'Phoonk 2' could not do any commercial business. He next directed 'Rakht Charitra' which released in two parts due to its long length, received a good opening.

Recently, Ram Gopal Varma directed 'The Attacks of 26/11' which was based on a real life incident occurred in 2008. It was showcased at the prestigious Berlin Film Festival in the Panorama as well as the competition section. Ram Gopal Varma is planning a sequel to 'Satya' as 'Satya 2'.