Mani Ratnam entered the film industry through the 1983 Kannada film, Pallavi Anu Pallavi.
34 Facts About Mani Ratnam
2.
Mani Ratnam was the director of the critically acclaimed, national award-winning movies Nayakan and Anjali, both of which qualified as India's official entry for The Academy Awards.
3.
Mani Ratnam is well known for his terrorism trilogy of Roja, Bombay, Dil Se.
4.
Mani Ratnam was born on 2 June 1956 in Madurai, Tamil Nadu as the second child of a family that was closely associated with film production.
5.
Mani Ratnam's father, S Gopala Ratnam, was a film distributor who worked for Venus Pictures, while his uncle, "Venus" Krishnamurthy, was a film producer.
6.
Mani Ratnam grew up in Madras, along with his siblings and cousins.
7.
In 1995, Mani Ratnam was wounded and hospitalised after homemade bombs were thrown at his home by attackers, suspected by police as Muslim extremists, in the wake of opposition to his film Bombay which portrayed the romance of a Hindu man with a Muslim woman.
8.
Mani Ratnam was not satisfied with his job as a consultant as he found it to be a mere extension of his academics.
9.
Mani Ratnam took a sabbatical from his job to ensure his participation in the making of the film.
10.
Mani Ratnam persuaded Balu Mahendra to do the cinematography as he found the latter's work to be very impressive.
11.
Mani Ratnam managed to get other crew members B Lenin, Thota Tharani and Ilaiyaraaja, all leading craftsmen in their respective fields.
12.
Mani Ratnam attributed the failure of the film to the conflict of interests that he and the producer had.
13.
Mani Ratnam remodeled a ready made script on the lines of Charlie Chaplin's Limelight.
14.
In 1986, Mani Ratnam directed the Tamil romantic drama Mouna Ragam, which starred Revathi and Mohan.
15.
Mani Ratnam won his first Filmfare Award for directing the film.
16.
In 1987, Mani Ratnam directed Nayakan starring Kamal Haasan, and the film became a huge success and brought him recognition at the national level.
17.
In 1989, Telugu actor Nagarjuna and Mani Ratnam collaborated for a Telugu film and it remains the only Telugu film directed by Ratnam.
18.
Mani Ratnam maintained a momentum of making emotional stories of under-served people through the film Anjali in 1990, which starred Baby Shamili as the central character.
19.
Ilaiyaraaja's musical score and Mani Ratnam's work were highly appreciated as they both went on to win the Music Director and Best Director awards respectively at the 39th Filmfare Awards.
20.
Mani Ratnam again teamed up with Ram Gopal Varma to provide the screenplay for the latter's Telugu film Gaayam, a socio-politico film loosely based on The Godfather.
21.
Mani Ratnam produced his wife's directorial debut film, Indira, and then directed the critically successful Iruvar with Mohanlal, Aishwarya Rai, Tabu and Prakash Raj in the lead.
22.
In 2000, Mani directed the romantic drama Alaipayuthey that starred R Madhavan and Shalini.
23.
Mani Ratnam made the film simultaneously in Hindi as Yuva, his second venture into Bollywood.
24.
Mani Ratnam suffered his first heart attack while shooting Aayutha Ezhuthu.
25.
In 2007, Mani Ratnam made Guru, a biographical film based on the life of Dhirubhai Ambani, a business magnate from India.
26.
In 2010, Mani Ratnam worked on a bilingual film, titled Raavanan starting Vikram Aishwarya Rai Prithviraj Sukumaranin Tamil where in the film look was unveiled at 2010 Cannes Film Festival, as part of its marketing campaign.
27.
Mani Ratnam's next was Kaatru Veliyidai, starring Karthi, Aditi Rao Hydari and RJ Balaji.
28.
Mani Ratnam grew up watching the films of K Balachander, Guru Dutt and Sivaji Ganesan.
29.
Unlike most of his contemporaries, Mani Ratnam did not assist anybody in film-making prior to entering the industry.
30.
Mani Ratnam handled screenplays for a majority of his films.
31.
Mani Ratnam is well recognized outside India with a retrospective of his films held at various film festivals around the world such as Toronto International Film Festival, Busan International Film Festival, Tokyo Filmex and Birmingham International Film Festival.
32.
Mani Ratnam's films are being screened regularly at many film festivals such as Venice Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Montreal World Film Festival and Palm Springs International Film Festival.
33.
Mani Ratnam has won several National Film Awards, Filmfare Awards, Filmfare Awards South and state awards.
34.
In 2010, Mani Ratnam was honoured with Jaeger-Lecoultre Glory to the Filmmaker at the 67th Venice International Film Festival.