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Adoor Gopalakrishnan

Adoor Moutatthu Gopalakrishnan Unnithan (b. Adoor, Pathanamthitta district, Kerala, India, July 3, 1941) is an internationally known Indian filmmaker. His films are made in the Malayalam language. Most of his films are rarely released world-wide in DVD or VHS. They go to a few film festivals around the world, and are released in Kerala. Then, they may be found in certain film societies in Kerala.

Biography

Gopalakrishnan was born on 3 July 1941 in the village of Pallickal (Medayil Bungalow) near Adoor, Kerala, India as the son of Moutathu Madhavan Unnithan and Gauri Kunjamma. He started his artistic life as an actor in amateur plays when he was 8. Later he shifted his base to writing and direction and wrote and directed a few plays. After securing a degree in economics in 1961 from the Gandhigram Rural Institute, nearDindigul in Tamilnadu he worked as a Government officer. In 1962, he left his job to study screenwriting and direction from the Pune Film Institute. He completed his course from there with a scholarship from the Government of India. With his classmates and friends, Adoor established Chithralekha Film Society and Chalachithra Sahakarana Sangham; the organization was the first film society in Kerala and it aimed at production, distribution and exhibition of films in the co-operative sector. Adoor's debut film the national award winning Swayamvaram(1972) was a milestone in Malayalam film history. The film was exhibited widely in various international film festivals including those held in Moscow, Melbourne, London and Paris. The films that followed namely Kodiyettam, Elippathayam, Mukhamukham, Anantharam, Mathilukal, Vidheyan and Kodiyettam lived up to the reputation of his first film and were well received by critics at various film festivals and fetched him many awards. However, Mukhamukham was criticized in Kerala while Vidheyan was at the centre of a debate due to the differences in opinion between the writer of story of the film Sakhariya and Adoor.

Adoor's later films are Nizhalkuthu, narrating the experiences of an executioner who comes to know that one of his subjects was innocent, and Naalu Pennungal, a film adaptation of 4 short stories by Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai.

Documentaries and New Cinema movement

Apart from nine feature films, he has over 30 short films and documentaries to his credit. All the nine films he directed, from Swayamvaram to Nizhalkkuthu, were screened at many international film festivals and won him national and international awards. The Helsinki Film Festival was the first film festival to have a retrospective of his films. He has headed the jury at the National Film Awards and many international film festivals.

Apart from his films, Adoor's major contribution towards introducing a new cinema culture in Kerala was the constitution of the first Film Society in Kerala, "Chitralekha Film Society". He also took active part in the constitution of "Chitralekha," Kerala's first Film Co-operative Society for film production. These movements triggered a fresh wave of films, called "art films," by directors like G Aravindan, PA Becker, KG George, Pavithran, and Raveendran. At a time this movement was so strong that even popular cinema synthesised with art cinema to create a new genre of films.

Awards and Milestones

Some of the awards Gopalakrishnan has won for his films include:

Padma Vibhushan — second highest civilian award from Government of India
Padma Shri
Legion of Honour (2003)
Dadasaheb Phalke Award — Lifetime Achievement Award in Film awarded by the Government of India (2004)
National Film Awards — various categories for Swayamvaram, Kodiyettam, Elippathayam, Anantharam, Mathilukal, Vidheyan, Kathapurushan and Nizhalkkuthu
Kerala State Film Awards: 13 Awards won in various categories for various films (as of December 2007)
International Film Critics Prize (FIPRESCI) — won consecutively for five feature films
London Film Festival — Sutherland Trophy — in 1982 for Elippathayam
British Film Institute Award — Most Original Imaginative Film of 1982 — Elipathayam
Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2003)

Posts Held

Adoor also worked in several respected posts in the film fraternity. He was a member of Sivaramakarath committee formed by the Government of India for framing a national film policy. He was a national film award committee member in 1974. He was a member of jury in Venice, Singapore, Hawaii and Delhi international film festivals. He was the chairman of International Film Festival of Kerala in 1999. He headed the National Film Development Corporation in the years 1980–1983. He was the director of Pune Film and Television Institute. In the years 1975–1977, he was a member of the advisory board for National Film Archives, Pune.