Manish Mundra

Manish Mundra is an Indian film producer who has produced numerous Bollywood films like Ankhon Dekhi, Masan, Kadvi Hawa and many more to his credit.^[1]

Early years and personal life

Manish Mundra was Born in Deoghar, Bihar. His family was in extreme financial difficulties. A Rajasthani Marwari, he had to move to Deoghar in Bihar, after his father suffered huge financial loss

As a child, he helped his mother to run the house, by hawking on the streets: he sold fruit juices and cola, on the streets after school hours to help his family make ends meet. Then he moved to Nigeria to gain the financial muscle so that he can work for his dream.

And now, the world knows him as one of the most influential and creative producer to look for in present era.

Mundra is also the CEO (Africa) and MD of Indorama Eleme Petrochemicals in Nigeria, a company he joined in 2002.

Indeed, it’s true that the critically appreciated Ankhon Dekhi marked Manish Mundra’’s foray into the Indian film industry as an independent producer.

Since then, he has spearheaded movies like Masaan (2015), Waiting (2016), Umrika (2016), Dhanak (2016), Newton (2017), Rukh (2017) Kadvi Hawa (2017) through his production house, Drishyam Films, that he founded in 2014.

And 2017, in particular, began on a high for Mundra: While Dhanak won the National Award for Best Children’s Film, Newton was chosen for India’s entry into the Oscars and Kadvi Hawa received a Special Mention at the National Film Awards this year.

Leo Tolstoy once said, “All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town.”

This is just so true, if a biography is written on Manish Mundra, as how he has emerged as a screen saviour of content based movies in the era of commercial cinema.

Through his production company, Drishyam Films, Mundra is funding and producing exceptional, award-winning, and entertaining movies that have the potential to reframe the very notion of what constitutes a “good” Indian film.

In his words "I go on my intuition, my gut," he says, "I find I get the best results when I can say 'this is a film I need to make.' Most of the films I’ve made wouldn’t normally have been made by other producers.’

He further adds, the idea of the Drishyam Films studio, "is to develop content which is inherently and culturally Indian in nature, convert the scripts into films at a cost-effective price, create the means for distribution, and get the movie-going audience to watch. We’ve made [eight] films now, and we're focused on developing a specific brand and cultivating an audience."

"We’re making story as the lead," he adds, "finding strong ensemble casts to support it.

He has a reciprocal yet receptive approach because what he does it is the opposite of how Bollywood usually works, taking a star and then concocting a story around them.^[2]

References

External links

• Manish Mundra on IMDb