Adoor Gopalakrishnan, the legendary director, turned 80 on Saturday. He is living in Lawrie Baker’s well-designed house in the city of the State and was lonely when his wife died a few years ago while his only daughter is an IPS officer.
Although he made just a dozen films, starting with ‘Swayamwaram’ in 1972, he won 16 National film prizes in his glittering career, 17 international prizes in addition to 17 Kerala States prizes, and also the 2004 Dadasaheb Phalke Prize.
In 1984, Padma Shri has been decorated by the country and followed up with Padma Vibhushan in 2006. His last feature film in 2016 was ‘Pinneyum’ which featured Dileep and Kavya Madhavan, the then-popular Mollywood couple.
He began his career in 1965 with a 20-minute film entitled ‘A Great Day,’ and since then has produced nearly 40 short films and documentaries in addition to 12 feature films.
Adoor graduated from Rural University of Gandhigram in 1960 and left the government in 1962 to study cinema as statistics researcher at the India Film Institute, Pune. Adoor had never had to look back after graduating from Pune in 1965.
He received a number, including top politicians, a number of visitors to his house on Saturday and a bishop to wish him well With the Covid pandemic going on, the next project remains to be seen.
Hard to crack, Adoor doesn’t tell his plans, even though there were speculations for some time about the possibility of casting Mohanlal superstar, which never happened before but he has been working with Mammootty superstar a few times.
The Legion of the Honor-French Order, the highest decoration in France in 1984; the Cairo International Film Festival’s Lifetime Performance Award; the London Film Festival and the British Film Institute awards to mention a few are among the internationally recognised.
While all his films have received excellent reviews, some of the films most renowned include: ‘Elipathayam,’ ‘Mukamukam.’
