Thota Tharani

Thota Tharani
Thota Tharani
Born	(1949-12-16) 16 December 1949 Chennai, India
Alma mater	The American College in Madurai
Occupation	Art director, production designer
Children	1
Website	thotatharrani.com

Thota Tharani is an Indian film art director and production designer who has worked in Tamil cinema, Telugu cinema, Malayalam cinema and Bollywood. As of 2013, he has won two National Film Awards, two Filmfare Awards South and four Tamil Nadu State Film Awards. His work consists of paintings, murals, paper collages, wooden montages, and installations and so on.

Film career

Thota Tharani has been involved in the art of set design since he was just twelve when he helped his father. His work was very much appreciated in films such as Nayagan, Indian the two films fetched him a National Film Award. His recent works include Dasavathaaram, Kanthaswamy and Leader. He has worked in more than 100 feature films as a production designer, including three foreign productions: Pondichéry, Dernier Comptoir Des Indes (French), Hanuman (French) and Branchie (Italian). His expertise in magnificent and larger than life sets has been well appreciated and awarded. His realistic sets for Nayagan are awe inspiring and the grandeur of the sets he created for Thiruda Thiruda and Mudhalvan added to the flavour of the films.

In addition to being an art director, Thota Tharani has worked as a Production designer and in the art department in various films.

Background

Thota Tharrani completed his Graduate Diploma in Mural Painting in 1971 and subsequently was offered a Fellowship from the Government of France to study Print-making. Additionally, he completed print making courses from the Royal College of Arts, London and New Delhi.

Awards

Civilian honours

• 2001 – Padma Shri.^[1]

National Film Award for Best Art Direction

• 1987 – Nayagan
• 1996 – Indian

Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Art Director

• 1991 – Thalapathi
• 1994 – Kaadhalan
• 2005 – Chandramukhi, Sringaram
• 2007 – Sivaji

Partial filmography

References

External links

• Thota Tharani at the Internet Movie Database