Sriram Raghavan is an Indian film director and screen writer. He is notable for producing a 45-minute documentary on Indian serial killer Raman Raghav and 2004 Hindi feature film Ek Hasina Thi produced by Ram Gopal Varma. His second feature film was 2007's Johnny Gaddar. His latest film Agent Vinod, starring Saif Ali Khan, released on March 23 and went to mixed reviews by critics and decent Box Office collections 2012.
Background
Sriram was born in Chennai, Tamil Nadu in a Tamil family to a botanist father and a movie-loving mother. He grew up in Pune, where he also did his schooling.
He studied at the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune. Rajkumar Hirani, one of his batchmates,edited his diploma film, The Eight Column Affair, which went on win National Film Award in 1987.
Career
He started his career before joining the FTII for Stardust, but left since he wasn't interested in it. Post his FTII studies, he made a documentary Raman Raghav, with Raghuvir Yadav. Later, he met Ram Gopal Varma, who liked his work in Raman Raghav, and signed him up for the film Ek Hasina Thi, a dark thriller starring Saif Ali Khan and Urmila Matondkar.
He later went on to direct another thriller, Johnny Gaddaar, which marked the debut of Neil Nitin Mukesh. The movie garnered overwhelming response from the critics, though it didn't fare well at the box office.
He is currently directing his third film, Agent Vinod, which is an original spy thriller and not a remake of the 1977 film, starring Saif Ali Khan-Kareena Kapoor duo, produced by Khan himself. He has also signed for a fantasy film, Happy Birthday with Ramesh Sippy, which will star Shah Rukh Khan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan.