I. V. Sasi
Born	28 March 1948 Kozhikode, Malabar District, Madras State, India
Occupation	Film director
Spouse(s)	Seema

Irruppam Veedu Sasidaran, better known as I. V. Sasi is a famous Malayali Indian film director who is known for his films of the '70s, '80s and early '90s. He has directed about 150 films in various South Indian languages and Hindi. He is known as the "veteran" or the "guru" filmmaker in Malayalam cinema.

Contents 1 Early life & career 2 Family 3 Selected filmography 4 References

[edit] Early life & career

I.V. Sasi started his film career as an art director. Later, after working as an assistant director in some films, he directed his first film at the age of twenty seven. Though his name was not mentioned in the credit, the film turned out to be a huge success. He started his directorial career officially with his first film Ulsavam. Soon he carved out a name for himself in the Malayalam Film Industry. His films were known for their uniqueness and always contained a stamp of his directorial style. His film Avalude Raavukal, now considered a Malayalam film classic, permanently established his name in the industry. This film was later dubbed into many other Indian languages including Hindi. It was the first film in Malayalam to be rated as "Adults only" even though it was a family drama. He introduced Mammootty as a hero in his film Thrishna. Mohanlal's first film as hero 'Uyarangalil was also directed by I.V. Sasi. Also, other combos such as M.T. Vasudevan Nair-I.V. Sasi and Padmarajan-I.V. Sasi , T.Damodaran-I.V.Sasi are well remembered. His favorite hero was Mammootty and they worked in more than 35 films. Within a span of 10 years, they completed 33 films together. He then went on to direct one of his biggest hits Devasuram which had yet another fascinating combo of Ranjith-Mohanlal-I.V.Sasi. He has also directed films in several other languages such as Hindi, Telugu, and Tamil. Kamal Haasan and Rajinikanth also have acted in several of his films. He has directed films with Kamal Haasan in Tamil (Guru, Alavudhinum Arputhavelakkum), Hindi(Karishma) and Malayalam(Eeta). Hindi movies "Pathitha", "Aankhon Ki Rishta" and "Karishma" were also directed by him. He has directed Malayalam movies in possibly every genre. He was the first one to make a war based movie "1921" written by T.Damodaran (also, 1921 was the first ever Malayalam movie to be nominated in the Italian Film Festival), the first ever political movie (Eenadu), the first ever movie based on the military backdrop (Thusharam), the second ever adult rated movie (Avalude Ravukal, 1st being Kalyana Rathriyil released in 1966)^{[citation needed]}, and the first ever movie about child marriage (Ina) in Malayalam film history. However, his later movies like sradha and Symphony disappointed at the box office.

[edit] Family

I.V. Sasi met his "future" wife, Malayalam actress Seema, on the sets of his film, Avalude Raavukkal. Ever since, she has been his favorite heroine. They have worked together in more than 30 movies. He has two children, daughter Anu and son Ani. Anu has acted in one movie, Symphony, directed by her father. Ani is a student of Visual Communication at Loyola College, Chennai and is an aspiring director himself. I.V.Sasi lives with his family in Chennai.

[edit] Selected filmography

[edit] References

• Weblokam - Profile
• Weblokam - News
• IMDb - Profile
• The Hindu Friday Review - Director's Special