Sukumar

Bandreddi Sukumar is an Indian film director, screenwriter, and producer who works in Telugu cinema. He is known for his intricate screenplays and for depicting protagonists with grey shades. He is one of the highest-paid directors in Indian cinema. He is also a National Award Winning Screenplay writer. Before entering the film industry, Sukumar worked as a mathematics and physics lecturer at a junior college in Kakinada for nearly seven years. He began his film career as a writer, working with Editor Mohan, and later assisted V. V. Vinayak on Dil (2003). He made his directorial debut with Arya (2004), which was a major success and earned him the Filmfare Award for Best Director – Telugu and the Nandi Award for Best Screenplay Writer. Sukumar's other notable films include Arya 2 (2009), 100% Love (2011), 1: Nenokkadine (2014¹), Nannaku Prematho (2016), Rangasthalam (2018), Pushpa: The Rise (2021), and Pushpa 2: The Rule (2024). Rangasthalam became the third highest-grossing Telugu film at the time, behind the Baahubali films. Pushpa was the highest-grossing Indian film of 2021, while Pushpa 2 went on to become third highest-grossing Indian films of all time. In addition to his directorial work, Sukumar has produced films under his banner Sukumar Writings, including Kumari 21F (2015), Uppena (2021), and Virupaksha (2023).…

Bandreddi Sukumar is an Indian film director, screenwriter, and producer who works in Telugu cinema. He is known for his intricate screenplays and for depicting protagonists with grey shades. He is one of the highest-paid directors in Indian cinema. He is also a National Award Winning Screenplay writer. Before entering the film industry, Sukumar worked as a mathematics and physics lecturer at a junior college in Kakinada for nearly seven years. He began his film career as a writer, working with Editor Mohan, and later assisted V. V. Vinayak on Dil (2003). He made his directorial debut with Arya (2004), which was a major success and earned him the Filmfare Award for Best Director – Telugu and the Nandi Award for Best Screenplay Writer. Sukumar's other notable films include Arya 2 (2009), 100% Love (2011), 1: Nenokkadine (2014), Nannaku Prematho (2016), Rangasthalam (2018), Pushpa: The Rise (2021), and Pushpa 2: The Rule (2024). Rangasthalam became the third highest-grossing Telugu film at the time, behind the Baahubali films. Pushpa was the highest-grossing Indian film of 2021, while Pushpa 2 went on to become third highest-grossing Indian films of all time. In addition to his directorial work, Sukumar has produced films under his banner Sukumar Writings, including Kumari 21F (2015), Uppena (2021), and Virupaksha (2023). In recognition of his contributions to Telugu cinema, he received the K. V. Reddy Memorial Award in 2014.. == Filmmaking style== As a writer, Sukumar is influenced by the works of Gudipati Venkatachalam, Yandamuri Veerendranath, and Yaddanapudi Sulochana Rani. In an interview with Deccan Chronicle, he revealed that each of the romantic scenes in his films are inspired from the writings of either Veerendranath or Sulochana Rani. Sukumar mentioned that Martin Scorsese has had a huge influence on him. He uses non-linear screenplay for most of his films and few sequences of most of his films involve revelation of finest details and re-visiting a scene again and again. His screenplays are mostly complex and multi-layered which earned him the reputation of being an intelligent screenplay writer. In an interview of The Times of India in January 2014, Sukumar said that emotions play a key role in his films, stating that a film "may have multiple subplots, but in the end, it's the emotional curve that connects with the audience". Because of improvising the sequences on the sets and making changes to already filmed portions, his films took long time to complete their production phases. In most of his films, Sukumar's protagonists are shown to be characterised with grey shades. Y. Sunita Chowdary of The Hindu commented that Sukumar "revels in giving a slight twist to his protagonist, in his background and character" and leaves the audience to understand him as he "unties the knots during narration and justifies his behaviour and makes us root for him". Karthik Keramalu of CNN-IBN, in his review of Kumari 21F, stated that Sukumar's lead characters are "psychologically wired differently", adding that at least one of the characters in his films "behaves in a way that will amuse the audience and the other characters present in the film". Regarding the same, Sukumar said, "We all have a lot of emotions and we suppress most of them fearing rejection. Instead we sport a smile and move on in this world. Problems arise when we don't enjoy all feelings like jealousy, selfishness and don't express them. To achieve something, there must be a driving force and that could be jealousy which you term as negative". Except for the short film I Am That Change whose music was composed by Sai Karthik, Sukumar chose Devi Sri Prasad to compose the soundtrack and background score for all the films he directed. Sukumar worked with cinematographer R. Rathnavelu for Arya, Jagadam, 1: Nenokkadine, and Rangasthalam. When Dil Raju asked Sukumar about the budget to be allotted to Arya, Sukumar said that he first wanted R. Rathnavelu on board as the cinematographer. In an interview to The Hindu in March 2012, Rathnavelu said, "Sukumar's speciality is he can give you five different ways to solve every problem you encounter. He can get to the crux of the problem and figure out the best possible method to resolve it". Because of their friendship with Sukumar, neither Rathnavelu nor Prasad charged any remuneration for his maiden production venture Kumari 21F. He worked with B. Rajasekar, Venkat Prasad, Vijay K. Chakravarthy, and Mirosław Kuba Brożek for Arya 2, 100% Love, Nannaku Prematho, Pushpa: The Rise, and Pushpa 2: The Rule, respectively. ===Frequent collaborators=== ==Film production== Sukumar established Sukumar Writings in 2014 for presenting and producing films. Sukumar Writings' first venture was Kumari 21F, which had Sukumar's norm technicians of Devi Sri Prasad composing music and R. Rathnavelu as the director of cinematography. Ashok Banreddi and Thomas Reddy joined as co-producers with P. A. Motion Pictures; it was co-produced by Vijaya Prasad Bandreddi and Thomas Reddy. Sukumar provided the story and screenplay for Kumari 21F, his debut feature film as a co-producer, which was directed by his assistant, Palnati Surya Pratap. He took inspiration from his college days in Razole where a young woman went to a picnic with some young men; a major undertaking for a woman at the time. Rumours were spread and the woman was labelled as a "loose" character, which stayed in Sukumar's mind. Produced on a budget of 6 9 crore, Kumari 21F grossed 38 crore and became the 12th highest grossing Telugu film of the year. Siddharth Rao of The Times of India stated, "In an industry where a damsel-in-distress-wooed-and-saved-by-an-angry-young-man is the norm, this is refreshing. Kudos to the writer Sukumar for giving yet another off-beat story with characters that can't be put into a box".

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