Anand Gandhi

While on the steering committee of the 48th International Film Festival of India (IFFI), Gandhi served as the creative director of the new VR chapter of the festival.

Anand Gandhi unveiled a poster of his next project, Emergence, on the seventh anniversary of his film Ship of Theseus on Sunday.

Emergence, which is set in a post-pandemic world, is "the story of bit by bit building of resilience through human ingenuity as scientists and everyday heroes create solutions,” says Gandhi.

Anand dropped out of college at the age of 18.

Anand was fascinated by the idea of using neuroscience and evolutionary biology to answer deep and persistent questions of philosophy.

He has cited Richard Dawkins and Douglas Adams as early influences.

Anand Gandhi (born Anand Modi, 26 September 1980) is an Indian filmmaker, entrepreneur, media producer, innovator and systems researcher.

He is also the founder/CEO of the Mumbai-based new media studio and systems think tank Memesys Culture Lab.

In 1996, Anand pursued a program in graphic design and started a studio called Ciceros Graphics.

He also taught Adobe Photoshop and other digital tools, new at the time, to traditional graphic designers.

At 16, Anand assisted activist and polemist Abhay Mehta with the maintenance of a whistleblowing website.

Anand Gandhi's writing career began in 2000 when he wrote dialogue for the first eighty-two episodes of popular daily soap opera Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi and screenplay for Kahaani Ghar Ghar Kii, both of which became the longest running shows on Indian Television.

The same year, Anand's play Sugandhi was awarded the prestigious National Prize.

Most of his plays, including Sugandhi, Pratyancha, Kshanotsav, Na, and Janashtaru were written for the alternative one-act theatre.

He made his film directorial debut with Right Here, Right Now (2003), a critically acclaimed 30-minute short film that dealt with the idea of cyclic causality and was shot in two continuous takes.

The film premiered in competition at the Tribeca Film Festival.

His second film Continuum (2006), which he co-wrote and co-directed with Khushboo Ranka, was a montage of simple stories from everyday life, popular culture and folklore that explore "the continuum of life and death, of love and paranoia, of trade and value, of need and invention, of hunger and enlightenment".

Anand has also directed numerous brand films.

His film, based on the work of Dr Dnyaneshwar Bhosale, 'Vicks: Care Lives On #TouchOfCare' won 4 awards at Spikes Asia Award 2022 - a Silver in Direction and a Bronze in Casting, Script and Cinematography - most by an Indian film in the Film Craft category.

Anand has penned one mainstream Gujarati play Chal Reverse Ma Jaiye and produced Grey Elephants In Denmark (2009), a Hindi/English play written and directed by Chaitanya Tamhane.

Anand's first feature-length film Ship of Theseus premiered at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival, where it was discovered as the "hidden gem" of the festival's selection of films that year.

It won the Best Film Award at the Transylvania International Film Festival, Best Cinematography Award at the Tokyo International Film Festival, the Jury Prize for Technical Excellence at the Mumbai Film Festival, Best Actress Award at the Dubai International Film Festival.

It was given a Special Mention by the Sutherland Jury "for tickling our intellect and showing us rarely-seen facets of Indian life".

Film Critic Derek Malcolm put it on the list of "films that changed our lives", made to celebrate the centenary of The Critics' Circle.

The title of the film alludes to Theseus' paradox, most notably recorded in Life of Theseus, wherein the Greek historian and philosopher Plutarch inquires whether a ship that has been restored by replacing all its parts remains the same ship.

His debut feature film Ship of Theseus (2013), which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival won the National Film Award for Best Picture.

Gandhi delivered his INK Talk at the annual INK conference in 2013 where he enumerated his motivations behind making films while expounding on the role of memes in choice-creation.

He was a mentor at the Xprize Visioneers 2016 Summit, an annual gathering of the Xprize enterprise, a leading global non-profit dedicated to encouraging "radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity" through incentivized prize competitions.

In 2017, he produced An Insignificant Man – a nonfiction thriller directed by Khushboo Ranka and Vinay Shukla on the rise of the Aam Aadmi Party in India.

It was released to widespread international and domestic acclaim.

The film was picked up by Vice for International distribution.

Actor and producer Ajay Devgn bought rights to Gandhi's play Beta Kaagdo.

It has been made into the feature film Helicopter Eela, starring Bollywood actress Kajol.

Gandhi is also the co-creator of ElseVR, India's first virtual reality (VR) platform aiming to bring "extraordinary and urgent stories" to the digital mainstream.

Anand's Lifebuoy ‘Help a child reach 5’ campaign won a Bronze Cannes Lion in 2017 for Creative Effectiveness, along with the “Grand Prix” in PR, and “Silver” in Healthcare at Spikes Asia 2016.

Gandhi's film as creative director, executive producer and co-writer, Tumbbad opened the Critics' Week at the 75th Venice Film Festival, released to a wide critical acclaim in October 2018.

His previous film for Vicks, titled 'One In a Million', won 4 Cannes Lions in 2019, including a Silver Lion and 3 Bronze Lions for Creative Strategy, Film Craft, and Film Healthcare.

The film also won three Silvers at Spikes Asia for Direction, Script, and Casting in the Filmcraft category.

His film for Gillette "Soldiers can cry" won a shortlist at Cannes 2020.

Anand is on the jury of the One Show 2022.