Anand Gandhi

Anand Gandhi आनंद गांधी
Anand Gandhi in 2012
Born	26 September 1980 (1980-09-26) (age 36) Mumbai
Occupation	filmmaker, screenwriter, director
Years active	2000–present

Anand Gandhi (आनंद गांधी) (born Anand Modi; 26 September 1980 in Mumbai, India) is a filmmaker and a media producer based in Mumbai most known for his debut feature film Ship of Theseus, which won the National Film Award for Best Picture. He has also written and directed several critically acclaimed plays and popular TV shows. He is the founder and CEO of the Mumbai-based studio Memesys Culture Lab.

His film directorial debut Right Here, Right Now (2003), a 30-minute film that deals with the idea of cyclic causality, achieved substantial critical acclaim. His second film Continuum (2006) was co-directed with Khushboo Ranka.Continuum is 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 Gandhi's writing career began in 2000 with the emergence of the daily soap opera genre in India. He wrote dialogue for the first eighty-two episodes of a popular show called Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi. Kyunki... and Kahaani Ghar Ghar Kii, for which he wrote screenplay, are the longest running TV shows in the history of Indian television. He is often quoted for his disgust over the aesthetics of Indian television, including the shows he wrote for.

He moved away from his television career to write and direct critically acclaimed plays, like Sugandhi, Pratyancha, Kshanotsav, Na and Janashtaru. Almost all his work has been produced for the alternative one-act theatre. He has written only one mainstream play, Chal Reverse Ma Jaiye in Gujarati. It achieved moderate success commercially and won the Transmedia Best Play award for 2005.

His first feature-length film, Ship of Theseus set in Cairo, Stockholm and Mumbai, premiered at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival, where it was discovered as the "hidden gem" of the festival's selection of films from Mumbai 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". Critic Derek Malcolm put it on the list of "films that changed our lives", made to celebrate the centenary of The Critics' Circle.