Adoor Gopalakrishnan

Nearly all of his films premiered at Venice, Cannes and Toronto film festivals. Along with Satyajit Ray and Mrinal Sen, Gopalakrishnan is one of the most recognized Indian film directors in the world cinema. For his films, Gopalakrishnan has won 16 National Film Awards, next only to Ray and Sen. He also won 17 Kerala State Film Awards. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1984 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2006. He received the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 2004 for his valuable contributions to Indian cinema. In 2016, he was awarded the J. Daniel Award, Kerala government's highest honour for contributions to Malayalam cinema. The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee have established an archive and research center, the Adoor Gopalakrishnan Film Archive and Research Center, at their Peck School of Arts where research students will have access to 35 mm prints of the 11 feature films and several documentaries made by Gopalakrishnan.

Adoor Gopalakrishnan studied at Film and Television Institute of India and Gandhigram Rural Institute. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are Parallel Cinema. Ritwik Ghatak is recorded as an influence. Distinctions recorded are Knight of the Legion of Honour, National Film Award for Best Feature Film, National Film Award for Best Direction and Kerala State Film Award for Best Story.

Gopalakrishnan was born on 3 July 1941 in the village of Pallikkal near Adoor, present-day Kerala, to a Malayali Nair Mouttathu family. After securing a degree in Economics, Political Science and Public Administration in 1961 from the Gandhigram Rural Institute near Dindigul, he worked in Kerala as a statistical investigator for the Government of India's National Sample Survey Office in its early years. In 1962, he left his job to study screenwriting and direction at the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune. He completed his course with a scholarship from the Government of India. With his classmates and friends, Gopalakrishnan established Chithralekha Film Society and Chalachithra Sahakarana Sangham; the organization was the first film society in Kerala and it aimed at production, distribution and exhibition of films in the co-operative sector.

Gopalakrishnan's debut film, the national award-winning Swayamvaram (1972) was a milestone in Malayalam film history. The film was exhibited widely in various international film festivals including those held in Moscow, Melbourne, London and Paris. The films that followed namely Kodiyettam, Elippathayam, Mukhamukham, Anantaram, Mathilukal, Vidheyan and Kathapurushan lived up to the reputation of his first film and were well received by critics at various film festivals and fetched him many awards. However, Mukhamukham was criticized in Kerala while Vidheyan was at the centre of a debate due to the differences in opinion between the writer of story of the film Sakhariya and Gopalakrishnan. Gopalakrishnan's later films are Nizhalkuthu, narrating the experiences of an executioner who learns that one of his subjects was innocent, and Naalu Pennungal, a film adaptation of four short stories by Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai. All his films have won national and international awards (National award for best film twice, best director five times, and best script two times. His films have also won his actors and technicians several national awards). Gopalakrishnan's third feature, Elippathayam won him the coveted British Film Institute Award for 'the most original and imaginative film' of 1982. The International Film Critics Prize (FIPRESCI) has gone to him six times successively for Mukhamukham, Anantharam, Mathilukal, Vidheyan, Kathapurushan and Nizhalkkuthu. Winner of several international awards like the UNICEF film prize (Venice), OCIC film prize (Amiens), INTERFILM Prize (Mannheim) etc., his films have been shown in Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Toronto, London, Rotterdam and every important festival around the world. In consideration of his contribution to Indian cinema, the nation honoured him with the title of Padma Shri (India's fourth highest civilian award) in 1984 and Padma Vibhushan (India's second highest civilian award) in 2006.

Gopalakrishnan is settled in Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala. His daughter Aswathi Dorje is an IPS officer (part of the Assam cadre, 2000 batch), currently acting as Deputy Commissioner of Police in Mumbai since June 2010. His biography Face to Face: The Cinema of Adoor Gopalakrishnan (2016) has been written by film scholar Parthajit Baruah of Assam. In December 2023, alongside 50 other filmmakers, Gopalakrishnan signed an open letter published in Libération demanding a ceasefire and an end to the 2023 Gaza war, and for a humanitarian corridor into Gaza to be established for humanitarian aid, and the release of hostages.

Apart from nine feature films, he has over 30 short films and documentaries to his credit. The Helsinki Film Festival was the first film festival to have a retrospective of his films. He has headed the jury at the National Film Awards and many international film festivals. Apart from his films, Gopalakrishnan's major contribution towards introducing a new cinema culture in Kerala was the constitution of the first Film Society in Kerala, "Chitralekha Film Society". He also took active part in the constitution of "Chitralekha", Kerala's first Film Co-operative Society for film production. These movements triggered a fresh wave of films, called "art films", by directors like G Aravindan, PA Becker, KG George, Pavithran, and Raveendran. At a time this movement was so strong that even popular cinema synthesised with art cinema to create a new genre of films. Bharat Gopi starred as hero 4 times in his ventures.

According to Gopalakrishnan "[i]n movies, the actor is not performing to the audience like the stage actor. Here they are acting for me. I am the audience and I will decide whether it is correct or not, enough or not."

In 2014, Gopalakrishnan, then heading the advisory committee of The International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK), irked controversy for introducing measures such as delegate passes being given only to those who can speak English since foreign films come with English subtitles, these changes were criticized for promoting old-world elitism and restricting the festival's appeal. In 2023, he faced criticism for defending the K. R. Narayanan National Institute of Visual Science and Arts director, Shankar Mohan, accused of violating reservation norms and discriminating based on caste and class. Gopalakrishan's statements, dismissing allegations and emphasizing Shankar Mohan's credentials, have drawn ire. The students accused Gopalakrishnan, the chairman of the film institute, of shielding the institute director and not addressing their concerns.

Kaamuki (Lover) is an incomplete 1967 movie directed by Adoor Gopalakrishnan and starring Madhu, Ushanandini, and Adoor Bhasi. The movie, produced by a friend from Kuwait, was dropped midway due to financial problems. The screenplay of the movie was later adapted, with some changes, as Theerangal (1978) by Rajeev Nath. Two of the four songs rendered by Yesudas in the original movie were also included in Theerangal (1978). The lyrics were by Ettumaanoor Somadasan, and the music was composed by the team of V.K. Sasidharan and P.K. Sivadas.