Anandakuttan

Anandakuttan Biography

Anandakuttan was a leading cinematographer associated with south Indian films, who predominantly worked in Malayalam movies. As a cinematographer, his best works include – Aniyathipravu, His Highness Abdulla, Kamaladalam, Bharatham, Sadayam, No.20 madras mail, Meleparambil aanveedu, Akashadoothu, Adharvam etc, apart from a few Tamil movies such as Kannukkul Nilavu, Kilipetchu Ketkava etc. He is a recipient of Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Cinematographer for the year 2000. The movie was Kannukkul Nilavu. He passed away on the Valentine’s Day 2016, just one day after the demise of Malayalam’s most popular poet and lyricist, ONV Kurup. The famous background scorer Rajamani also passed away on February 14. Anandakuttan was undergoing treatment for cancer and passed away at the age of 61.

Anandakuttan was born to Ramakrishnan Nair and Karthiyayani Amma on March 1954. He was settled in Ernakulam. He was married to Geetamani and the couple had three children. All are married now. Also known by the nick name ‘Kuttettan’, he spent exact three decades in the film industry. Manasiloru Mayil in 1976 was his debut film as an independent cinematographer. He has also worked in Telugu and Tamil film industry, apart from Mollywood. Anandakuttan regularly worked with successful film directors like Faazil, Sibi Malayil etc.

1990s was the glowing period of his career, when he became a part of many great movies on Malayalam screen. It was a season of power packed performances and powerful scripts close to social life of Kerala. Aniyathipravu, His Highness Abdulla, Kamaladalam, Bharatham, Sadayam, Akashadoothu etc needs no introduction and are the best instances of his cinematographic work of 1990s. He even created records by working for 12 movies a year. He has done almost 200 movies belonging to different languages.

He was born and brought up in Changanassery of Kottayam district. After pre-degree course, he moved to Chennai to study cinematography. He worked as an apprentice in Vijaya vahini studio Chennai during his early days. His meeting with ace cinematographer Ramachandra babu was the turning point of his career. He studied the essence and preliminary lessons of cinematography under this artist and worked for the movie, ‘Manas’ under him. It was his first film as an assistant.

Published: N/A

Updated: February 20, 2016