Amit Sharma (director)

Amit Ravindernath Sharma is an Indian director and producer working predominantly as a director of television commercials.[1]

Amit Sharma
Born
Delhi, India
OccupationFilmmaker
Years active2004–present
Notable work
Badhaai Ho

In feature films, he is best known for the 2018 film Badhaai Ho, which was one of the highest grossing Bollywood films of 2018, having earned ₹220.34 crore ($31 million) as of December 2018.[2]

Biography

Early Life and Career

Sharma was born in Delhi, India to parents who worked for the government.[3] While still in school, he connected with film director Pradeep Sarkar, and was invited to shoot an advert in Manali. After graduating, he worked with Sarkar for six years before moving to Mumbai in 2001.[3]

Two years later, he left the tutorship of Sarkar, and in 2004 he set up his own company, Chrome Pictures, with Aleya Sen and Hemant Bhandari. Later that year, he was offered an assistant role on Sarkar's film, Parineeta, which he turned down.[3]

Advertising

Between 2005 and 2015, Sharma directed over 900 advertisements,[3] including those for Google, Coca-Cola and Amazon.[4][5][6]

In 2011, he directed an advert entitled 'The Silent National Anthem' featured deaf and mute 'singing' the Jana Gana Mana through sign language, and won a silver award at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.[7] A 2013 advert for Lifebuoy focused on hygiene in Indian villages, and won Gold at the Spikes Asia awards later that year.[8][9]

The most well-known advert he directed is perhaps the Google Reunion advert from November 2013, which told the fictional story about the reunion of two elderly men, one from India and one from Pakistan, who were childhood friends but were separated as children during the Partition of India. The ad had a strong impact in both countries, leading to hopes that travel restrictions between the two countries might be eased,[10][11] and the video garnered over 1.6 million views on YouTube before debuting on television.[12]

His work during this time was described by The Economic Times as a "contemporary greatest hits of Indian advertising".[6]

Early film career and breakthrough

In 2014, Sharma was invited by producer Boney Kapoor to direct Tevar, a remake of the 2003 Telugu film Okkadu, starring Arjun Kapoor.[3][13] The film generally received poor reviews.[14][15]

In 2016, Sharma was elected on the Cannes Lions Craft Jury.[16]

Sharma worked as the director on Badhaai Ho, which began shooting in late 2017, and starred Ayushmann Khurrana and Neena Gupta.[17] Sharma's production company Chrome Pictures produced the film alongside Junglee Pictures, and it was released on 18 October 2018.[18] The film became the seventh-highest opening weekend grosser of 2018,[19] and earned ₹220.34 crore ($31 million) worldwide.[2]

Sharma is set to direct an upcoming film about the life and career of Syed Abdul Rahim, also produced by Boney Kapoor. It is due to start filming in mid-2019.[20][21][22]

Filmography
YearFilmRole(s)
2015TevarDirector
2018Badhaai HoDirector, Producer
TBAMaidaanDirector

Awards
  • 2011 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity – Silver ('The Silent National Anthem')
  • 2013 Spikes Asia – Gold ('Help A Child Reach 5', for Lifebuoy)[9]
gollark: Also, this is mildly interesting: https://www.theregister.com/2020/05/28/openssh_deprecating_sha1/
gollark: What poster?
gollark: To randomly partly restart a conversation from 10 minutes ago, the UK government apparently cares enough about security that they have this program to (apparently) try and teach "cybersecurity" stuff to teenagers, but I have no idea how good they actually are about pentesting.
gollark: Sounds like your country has stupid laws. I wonder if the UK's are better but I kind of doubt it.
gollark: !!FUN!!

References
  1. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/amit-sharma-meet-the-director-of-landmark-ads-from-google-lifebuoy-visa-idea/articleshow/35633411.cms?from=mdr
  2. Hungama, Bollywood. "Badhaai Ho Box Office Collection till Now". Bollywood Hungama. Retrieved 2018-12-08.
  3. "Amit Ravindernath Sharma: I promised my mother at her funeral that I would never let her die – Times of India". The Times of India. Retrieved 2018-12-08.
  4. "Coca-Cola Rolls Out Brrr Campaign In India". www.bestmediaifo.com. Retrieved 2018-12-08.
  5. Delhi, Akansha Mihir Mota; April 26; 2018. "Amazon's Chonkpur Cheetahs: The journey from a small town to a big city". www.bestmediaifo.com. Retrieved 2018-12-08.CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  6. Bapna, Amit; Balakrishnan, Ravi (2014-05-28). "Amit Sharma: Meet the director of landmark ads from Google, Lifebuoy, Visa, Idea". The Economic Times. Retrieved 2018-12-08.
  7. "Silent National Anthem ad wins top award". News18. Retrieved 2018-12-08.
  8. "Lifebuoy's moving message". www.afaqs.com. 2013-02-24. Retrieved 2018-12-11.
  9. "Spikes Asia Festival of Creativity". Spikes Asia Festival of Creativity. Retrieved 2018-12-11.
  10. "Google can envision Pakistan-India harmony in less than 4 minutes…can we?". Retrieved 2018-12-11.
  11. "Google reunion ad reignites hope for easier Indo-Pak visas". Deccan Chronicle. 2013-11-15. Retrieved 2018-12-11.
  12. "'Reunion': Google's (NASDAQ: GOOG) Ad Evoking Partition Separation A Big Hit In India And Pakistan (VIDEO)". International Business Times. 2013-11-19. Retrieved 2018-12-11.
  13. Hungama, Bollywood (2013-12-17). "Arjun Kapoor's Tevar to be produced by Sanjay Kapoor". Bollywood Hungama. Retrieved 2018-12-08.
  14. "Review: Tevar is a tiring watch". Rediff. Retrieved 2018-12-08.
  15. January 9, Saurabh Dwivedi; January 10, 2015UPDATED; Ist, 2015 15:23. "Tevar review: Weak story covered up with power packed dialogues". India Today. Retrieved 2018-12-08.CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  16. "Cannes Lions 2016: Clichés Indian jury members don't want to see in the ad fest". The Economic Times. 2016-06-01. Retrieved 2018-12-11.
  17. "Ayushmann Khurrana teams up with Tevar director Amit Sharma for Badhaai Ho, to shoot in Delhi". www.hindustantimes.com. 2017-11-24. Retrieved 2018-12-08.
  18. Badhaai Ho, retrieved 2018-12-08
  19. Hungama, Bollywood (2018-10-22). "Box Office: Badhaai Ho becomes the 7th highest opening weekend grosser of 2018". Bollywood Hungama. Retrieved 2018-12-08.
  20. DelhiJuly 13, Charu Thakur New; July 13, 2018UPDATED; Ist, 2018 19:52. "Who is Syed Abdul Rahim, the man Ajay Devgn is playing in his next film?". India Today. Retrieved 2018-12-09.CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  21. "Ajay Devgn to play Syed Abdul Rahim". The Indian Express. 2018-07-14. Retrieved 2018-12-09.
  22. jha, subhash k (2018-11-04). "The football field beckons Ajay Devgn and his director Amit Sharma". Deccan Chronicle. Retrieved 2018-12-09.
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