YOGRAJ BHAT

YOGRAJ BHAT - Film Director

Yogaraj Bhat was born in bangalore district to a Shivalli-Brahmin family. He did his schooling at Tilavalli, in Haveri district. Then he went to Mysore for college studies, where he was a student of Kannada literature. 

Even though born in Bangalore, he spent all his childhood days in a village called Tilavalli near Haveri District and Hangal Taluk. One of his elder brothers still stays in Tilavalli and was responsible in bringing up Yograj.

During his college days in Mysore he watched a lot of foreign classics like Coppolla’s The Godfather, Kurosawa’s Ran. He is a great fan of Kurosawa and fed upon a staple diet of Fellini and Godard films. These films inspired him a lot. He came to Bangalore at the age of 22 hoping to be a film cameraman.

As a new entrant to the film industry, Yograj Bhat served as an assistant director under Girish Kasaravalli, V. Ravichandran, Sunil Kumar Desai and B Suresha. Talking about this experience he says "It was not about who the guru was. It was about being employed, It was the thrill of watching film-making at close quarters. I even enjoyed being admonished by these directors. The thrill of standing next to a camera and listening to its sound is inexplicable." He directed a TV serial, Chakra before making his first feature film.

It took him eight years before he found a producer to back him as an independent director. His first Kannada movie as a director was Mani. The highlight of the film was memorable performances by Umashree and Rangayana Raghu, both of whom won Karnataka State's Best Supporting Actor award for their respective roles in this movie. His second movie Ranga SSLC (2004) did not perform as expected. The film included Sudeep and Ramya in the lead, and Umashree as Sudeep's mother and Rangayana Raghu as "Bomb Naga." The story of the film was written by his friend Soori. The music of the film was composed by Sandeep Chowta.

For the next two years he did not direct any movie as it was very much testing times for him. He spent his time doing a lot of corporate films and documentaries. He had also decided to give himself a bit of time before he ventured into another film project. That was when the idea of Mungaaru Male came up. He almost spent one year writing the script. "Comedy Time" Ganesh liked the script very much, and he introduced a producer E Krishnappa who eventually produced the film. Mungaaru Male was on-air for 2 years followed by another blockbuster Gaalipata.

His next movie Manasaare got rave reviews from the critics and did well all over Karnataka. After Manasaare, he directed and co-produced next movie titled Pancharangi which stars Diganth and Nidhi Subbaiah in the lead roles. Rediff declared as one of the best Kannada movies of 2010.

Next movie in 2011 was Paramathma starring Puneeth Rajkumar which was another hit movie liked by all class people. In 2012, he will be directing a film titled Drama with Yash and Radhika Pandit in the lead role.

He is married to Renuka and the couple have two children Punarvasu and Panchami.