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 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.
In the recent times, Ponman (2024) in Malayalam, and Hi Nanna (2023) & HIT: The Third Case (2024) – Nani starrer Telugu hits earned him appreciation.
Sanu Varghese worked across different industries
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 Fight Club – Members Only (2006). His work was noticed in Deepika Padukone-Farhan Akhtar starrer thriller, Karthik Calling Karthik (2010), the movie which was a flop at the time of release but later achieved cult status.
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 the 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. In 2021, he marked his directorial debut with Aarkariyam starring Biju Menon.
A few more acclaimed works of Sanu Varguese as a cinematographer include – Vishwaroopam II (Tamil) in 2017, Android Kunjappan Version 5.25 (Malayalam) in 2019, Lootcase (Hindi) in 2020, and Malik (Malayalam) & Shyam Singha Roy (Telugu) in 2021.
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. Aarkkariyaam is his debut Malayalam film as a director, which belongs to commercial genre. Biju Menon won Best actor State award and Ranjith Ambay won the best makeup artist.
Also read about acclaimed cinematographer turned film director, Rajeev Ravi, who did the camera work of many Anurag Kashyap films.
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