Founder who has dedicated his life to Nurturing Acting

ABOUT FOUNDER

Mounesh Badiger (born March 21, 1984) is an award-winning writer, director, and literature contributor to the Kannada cinema industry.
He is known for his work as an acting tutor and has directed numerous Kannada plays and a feature film titled “Soojidaara“.

QUICK READ ABOUT MOUNESH BADIGER

With over 18 years of experience in this field, Mounesh Badiger works as an actor, director, writer, and acting teacher. Having studied theatre professionally at the Ninasam Theatre Institute, he has conducted theatre & acting workshops in schools, colleges, non-government organisations etc. across the state. He has also directed many plays and participated as a judge in many drama competitions. He has taught film acting and film art at several film schools in Bengaluru. He has prepared the acting curriculum for many schools and has also worked as a theatre critic in Prajavani, a leading Kannada daily.

LITERATURE

Another forte of Mounesh is literature. His first collection of short stories, the Chanda Book Prize winner, “Maya Kolahala” which received immense recognition from readers and critics was released in 2013. It also won the “Dr. U. R. Ananthamurthy Award” and “Basavaraj Kattimani Award”. In 2011, he was awarded the first Kannada Toto Award and in 2015 he was awarded the “Kendra Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskara”- one of India’s highly acclaimed literary recognitions. “Vidhvamsaka Shanti Kendra” (Vishanke) is a new postmodern play in Kannada written by him. “Premavemba Avargiya Vyanjana” is his poetic dialogue of love and lovers of this age! A new collection of short stories titled “Kannina Khayile” and an interesting novel are about to be released.

The book “Abhinaya Kalisalu Saadhyavilla”, written by him keeping in mind the new actors who wish to learn acting, has gained immense popularity and serves as a compass for new actors as well as for those who have already done a lot of work in the field.

The renowned play ‘Dak Ghar’ by the National Poet Rabindranath Tagore is widely known. This two-act short play delves into the psychological and physical potential of a child through the medium of art. The enchantment it evokes is exceptionally unique. Despite featuring a child as the main character, its themes resonate more with adults than with children. Mounesh Badiger has skillfully translated it into Kannada, bringing it to the language of Uttar Karnataka. This adaptation opens up new avenues for experimentation in Kannada theater, which is yet to fully explore its untapped possibilities.

FILM INDUSTRY EXPERIENCE

After working as an associate director for many films in the script and story development department, he became a director by directing a short film titled “Nirvana”. It won the 2nd Best Film at the Bangalore International Short Film Festival (BISFF) organized by Suchitra film society for the first time.

In a unique project organised by Neenasam titled “Kannada kaavya kannadi”, he directed two visual poetry segments of poems written by Rashtrakavi Kuvempu and Dr. Chandrasekhara Kambara which gained critical acclaim in both the literary and visual media.

With an extensive experience of nearly 18 years as an acting teacher, he has trained various actors and actresses. Many students who have trained under his guidance are now successfully working as actors, directors and technicians in movies and TV serials.

"an actor himself is an instrument and instrumentalist too!"

- Mounesh Badiger

SOOJIDAARA [2019]

“Soojidara”, a feature film written and directed by Mounesh Badiger, starring Haripriya, Yash Shetty, Achyuth Kumar, Chaitra Kotoor, Suchendra Prasad and many others, was released across the state in 2019. Apart from being much appreciated by the audience it also went on to be dubbed in many languages and was a huge success.