Karthik Subbaraj

Karthik Subbaraj Biography

Karthik Subbaraj is a Tamil film director, and screenwriter best known for the suspense supernatural thriller Pizza (2012). It was his debut movie only and this blockbuster movie was hugely praised by film critics for its theme, powerful screenplay and intelligent director. Later the movie was remade to several languages and its Hindi remake is to release in 2014. Its Hollywood remake has also been announced. His directorial debut with a fresh new story also started a new ‘Pizza series’ of horror thrillers in Tamil and its second installment was released in 2013 titled, Pizza 2: The Villa, though he was not a part of it. The movie too repeated the success of its prequel.

This 30 year old young director was a software engineer for 5 years before entering the film world. He worked in an IT company in Bangalore and made short films during weekends. He attended a one-day workshop called Film Camp Sanjay Nambiar, which helped him to know the basics of film making. As a part of his s/w job, he worked in US for 2 years and also worked under a director, Mark Williams as an assistant. He made two short films during this period.

Later, while at Madurai he made one short film, Kaatchipizhai that got selected for Naalaya Iyakunar. Later he made many short films like Thuru, Black and White, and Neer. Vijay Sethupathy acted in Thuru, which still remains director’s favourite. He wrote the screenplay of Pizza. Yet it took one and a half year to complete the work. First script he narrated was Jigarthanda. But the film producer wanted a less-budget movie. That’s how Pizza happened. Made on a small budget on 15 million, the move cashed out much more, including its copyrights. The movie starred Vijay Sethupathi and Remya Nambeesan in pivot roles.

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Updated: June 16, 2014