Sanu Varghese – Cinematographer with ‘Viswaroopam’, ‘Badhai Ho’ and ‘Take Off’ to his credit

Sanu Varghese is a successful Indian cinematographer associated with both acclaimed and commercial projects. Born as a Malayali, he is equally successful in Bollywood and south Indian films. Success of Bollywood comedy, Badhai Ho, Malayalam thriller – Take Off and Telugu emotional sports drama Jersey in the recent times placed him among the list of top rated cinematographers of the country. He has also done Malayalam psychological thriller, Elektra, and Tamil movies of Kamal Hassan – Viswaroopam 1 and 2, and Thoongaa Vanam in the past. He has also done camera works of Wazir, David, Hasee Toh Phasee, Karthik Calling Karthik and Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon in Bollywood.

Sanu Varghese hails from Kottayam, Kerala. His professional career began with DD News in Hyderabad, and his meeting with Ravi K. Chandran proved to be a turning point of his life. He started assisting Chandran for his projects, and turned a full-fledged cinematographer with Ram Gopal Varma’s production venture, Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon in 2003. The movie was a flop. After that he continued working in ad-field, and his second movie was Deepika Padukone-Farhan Akhtar starrer thriller, Karthik Calling Karthik.

He got opportunity to work with Shyamaprasad for the highly acclaimed Malayalam movie, Elektra the same year. The movie starring Nayanthara and Manisha Koirala was highly appreciated in film festival circuits and his life changed forever. He got opportunity to work with Kamal Hassan in Viswaroopam in 2013 whose work received wide acclaim and there was no turning back after that. As a cinematographer, he owns many successful projects in Bollywood, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam film industries.

Sanu Varghese – Some interesting and less-known facts

1. He has worked with A. R. Rahman for the music videos of his album, Raunaq in 2014.

2. Nine of the first 15 films he worked in were with first-time directors, and he could find freshness in those projects, as he worked with newcomers.

3. He is currently working on his debut Malayalam film as a director, which belongs to commercial genre.