Sukumar

He earned the Filmfare Award for Best Director – Telugu at the 52nd Filmfare Awards South ceremony, and the Best Screenplay Writer award at the annual Nandi Awards ceremony.

Bandreddi Sukumar (born 11 January 1970) is an Indian film director, screenwriter and producer who works in Telugu cinema.

He is known for his complex and multi-layered screenplays, and infusing grey shades in the characterisation of his protagonists.

He is one of the highest paid directors in South Indian cinema.

Sukumar worked as a mathematics and physics lecturer at a junior college in Kakinada for nearly seven years before pursuing a career in films as a director.

Sukumar was born on 11 January 1970, in Mattaparru, a village near Malikipuram in erstwhile East Godavari district (present-day Konaseema district) of Andhra Pradesh.

His father Tirupathi Rao Naidu was a rice trader and his mother Veera Veni was a homemaker.

Sukumar was the youngest of the six children of Naidu and Veni.

At the age of 6, following the slaughter of a rooster he loved, Sukumar practiced vegetarianism for a long time.

He did his schooling from Zilla Parishad High School, Razole and graduated with a master's degree in mathematics.

He later worked as a mathematics and physics lecturer in Aditya Junior college, Kakinada.

After nearly seven years, Sukumar and his junior Prakash Toleti decided to do something creative as they opined that their life has become too mundane as a lecturer.

Sukumar and Toleti began their career as writers in Telugu cinema and worked as writers for a few films.

Sukumar chose to narrate the story of a boy who confess his love to a girl right in the beginning, opposed to films like Darr (1993), Kabhie Haan Kabhie Naa (1994), and Kaadhal Kondein (2003) where the protagonist's love/obsession for the female lead is revealed towards the end, as he found that idea an "obsolete" one.

Raju was impressed with Sukumar's script and Allu Arjun was selected as its protagonist after considering Ravi Teja, Nithin, and Prabhas.

Anuradha Mehta and Siva Balaji were chosen for the other two lead roles.

R. Rathnavelu and Devi Sri Prasad were chosen as the film's director of photography and music director respectively; they both collaborated with Sukumar in many of his future projects.

Arya was commercially successful; it grossed ₹16 crore on a budget of ₹4 crore.

The success of Arya catapulted Sukumar into stardom overnight.

After writing three scenes for Jayanth C. Paranjee Bavagaru Bagunnara? (1998), they were summoned by the college to help them in recruiting students.

They walked out of the film on moral grounds.

Due to lack of earnings, Sukumar briefly continued to teach students, earned money, and returned back to film industry.

He worked as an assistant director for Manasichi Choodu (1998).

Sukumar later assisted Editor Mohan for Kshemamga Velli Labhamga Randi (2000) and Hanuman Junction (2001).

He began working as a writer and worked with Editor Mohan before assisting V. V. Vinayak on Dil (2003).

Before making his directorial debut, Sukumar worked under V. V. Vinayak for Dil (2003) as an assistant director.

He made his directorial debut with Arya in 2004, whose success catapulted him to stardom.

He won the Filmfare Award for Best Director – Telugu and Nandi Award for Best Screenplay Writer for his work on Arya.

Sukumar began working on the script of his directorial debut Arya (2004) in Visakhapatnam before joining the sets of Vinayak's Dil.

Its producer Dil Raju assured that he would produce the film if Dil becomes a commercial success.

Sukumar then began working on the script of Jagadam (2007), a crime film starring Ram Pothineni and Isha Sahni.

Unlike Arya, Jagadam focused more on violence and in an interview with South Scope, Sukumar called the film an "act of bravado", adding that he "made it with an innocent passion", without thinking about the audience's response.

Jagadam received mixed reviews and was a commercial failure.

While Sify called the film a "not so much a plot-driven film" albeit praising the work of its technical crew, Rediff called it a "good effort".

Sukumar's other notable films include Arya 2 (2009), 100% Love (2011), 1: Nenokkadine (2014), Nannaku Prematho (2016), Rangasthalam (2018) and Pushpa: The Rise (2021).

Rangasthalam was the third highest grossing Telugu film at the time behind the Baahubali films. Pushpa: The Rise is the highest-grossing Indian film of 2021 and ranks among the highest-grossing Telugu films of all time.

He then wrote and directed Arya 2 (2009), which was promoted as the namesake sequel of his debut Arya.

It featured Allu Arjun, Kajal Aggarwal, and Navdeep in the lead roles and narrated the story of Arya, a psychotic orphan whose love for his friend Ajay and his colleague Geetha is never reciprocated.

In 2014, he received the K. V. Reddy Memorial award for his contributions to Telugu cinema.

Sukumar also produced films like Kumari 21F (2015), Uppena (2021), Virupaksha (2023) under the banner Sukumar Writings.