Harshavardhan Kulkarni

Harshavardhan Kulkarni is an Indian film writer-director and producer. He is the son of Kannada poet G.V. Kulkarni. His directorial debut feature film Hunterrr was released in 2015.^[1][2]

Harshavardhan was born and raised in Mumbai, did his schooling from Don Bosco, Borivali and trained as a petrochemical engineer at Pune University(MIT Kothrud). All through engineering he was busy writing, directing and acting in plays including winning the prestigious Purushottam Karandak. He began his career as a script writer for the television series Aahat for Sony TV. He was also the assistant director for a few episodes. During the time he decided he wanted to do a course in film making and joined the Film and Television Institute of India specialising in Editing. Along with a couple of his FTII classmates(Kirti Nakhwa, producer/editor of all his films & Amitabh Shukla, editor of films such as ) he formed the production company Tailormade Films upon graduation which was involved in a whole bunch of corporate films, audio visuals and ad films. His first foray into short feature writing was when he wrote THE CHOSEN ONE for STAR One directed by Vinil Matthew. This partnership collaborated subsequently on HASEE TOH PHASEE. Between THE CHOSEN ONE and HTP he also made a short film on tourism for MTDC that fetched him the National Award for Best Film on Tourism - COLOURS OF KONKAN aka LOST AND FOUND. He was also the Associate Director on APNA ASMAAN.

Hunterrr is Harsh's debut as a director. Beginning as a tome of over 400 pages, the screenplay went through several re-drafts to be pared down to its final filming draft of 120 pages. While many production houses were interested in producing it, for creative reasons, Kirti and Harsh's production company ended up producing the movie after being backed by a financier who was also debuting in the movie industry. Once the movie was made Phantom Films(now disbanded) and Shemaroo got attached to the film for marketing and distribution.

Harshavardhan has made some notable ad films as well, that are strong on the narrative structure. Amazon's "Mom Be A Girl Series" and Lenovo's "Let Your Child Reach The Stars" campaigns standing out for their strong emotional connect. In the process he has had the opportunity to work with pros from the industry such as Akshay Kumar, Nawazuddin Siddique, Ayushman Khurrana, Swara Bhaskar, Sachin Pilgaonkar and Yami Gautam. Working primarily with Bloom Media he has racked up a substantial portfolio of such films under his belt.

Harshavardhan is currently wrapping up the second offering of the BADHAI franchise entitled BADHAI DO, starring Bhumi Pednekar and Raj Kumar Rao. Principal shooting of the majority of the film wrapped in mid-Feb '21. The film has been shot on location in Dehradun, Mussorie and Rishikesh.

Filmography[]

• Badhaai Do - Director (2022)
• Hunterrr - Writer & Director (2015)
• Hasee Toh Phasee - Screenplay & Dialogs (2014)
• Apna Asmaan - Associate Director (2007)

References[]