Akella Naga Srinivasa Sharma born 7 November 1971, known professionally as Trivikram Srinivas, is an Indian film director and screenwriter known for his works in Telugu cinema. Trivikram’s craft is known for its high dose of comedy, fast-paced repartee, farcical situations, escapist themes, and comedy thriller plotlines involving action, emotion, courtship, family and marriage. He has garnered seven State Nandi Awards, two Filmfare Awards South, and a SIIMA Award. In 2015, he received the BN Reddy National Award for contribution to Indian cinema.
In 2000, he wrote dialogues for Nuvve Kavali, which won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Telugu for that year. His debut directorial Nuvve Nuvve (2002) has garnered the Nandi Award for Best Feature Film (Silver). His subsequent writing and directorial works include successful ventures such as Swayamvaram, Samudram (1999), Chiru Navvutho (2000), Nuvvu Naaku Nachav (2001), Manmadhudu (2002), Malliswari (2004), Jai Chiranjeeva (2004), Athadu (2005), Jalsa (2008), Khaleja (2010), Julai (2012), Attarintiki Daredi (2013), S/O Satyamurthy (2015), A Aa (2016) Aravinda Sametha Veera Raghava (2018) and Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo (2020). He is popularly known as Maatala Maantrikudu (Wizard of Words) and Guruji.
Early life
Akella Naga Srinivasa Sarma was born in Bhimavaram, West Godavari District of Andhra Pradesh into a Telugu speaking family to Akella Uday Bhaskar Rao and Akella Narsamma. He did his schooling at S.Ch.B.R.M. High School and Intermediate at D.N.R. College in Bhimavaram and graduated with a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc) from DNR College, Bhimavaram. He then attained master’s degree in Nuclear physics from Andhra University as a gold medalist.
Trivikram and actor Sunil graduated from the same college in Bhimavaram. They are close friends, and were roommates in the initial stage of their film careers. Sunil considers Trivikram as the most influential person in his life. Trivikram also worked as a teacher in a school, teaching Maths and Science. Later, he reached Hyderabad, and stayed with Sunil, writing stories for Daily Serials.
Sunil introduced him to actor Gautam Raju who hired Trivikram for his children’s tuition. In the meanwhile, Trivikram also wrote a short story “Road” which was published in a leading Telugu Weekly.
Career
Screen writing and dialogues
Trivikram had no plans to write film dialogues, but instead had an interest in directing. Sunil introduced Gowtam Raju initially, and then Gowtham Raju, in turn, introduced Trivikram to T.D.V. Prasad, who asked Trivikram to write the dialogues for the climax scene of the movie he was working on at that time. Prasad, impressed with the result, then asked Trivikram to work as an assistant to director K. Vijaya Bhaskar. It was during this project that Trivikram received an offer to write dialogues for the movie Swayamvaram.
Although Swayamvaram was the first movie for which Trivikram wrote dialogues, Nuvve Kavali was released first. Trivikram went on to write dialogue for Chiru Navvutho, Nuvvu Naaku Nachav, Malliswari, Jai Chiranjeeva and Manmadhudu. He also worked as dialogue writer for the Telugu movie Vasu starring Venkatesh and Bhumika Chawla directed by A. Karunakaran. Though known as a dialogue writer, Trivikram also penned lyrics for a song in the movie Oka Raju Oka Rani, and sang a bit of the song Computersu Artsu Scienceu in his directorial debut Nuvve Nuvve.
As a director
Trivikram received critical acclaim with his directorial debut with the film Nuvve Nuvve, a movie dealing in depth with family sentiments along with high doses of comedy. This was followed by the critically acclaimed film Athadu. Athadu collected a distributor’s share of ₹220 million (US$3.1 million) in its total run, thus becoming the 2005 box office hit in Tollywood. Its satellite rights were sold for ₹45 million (US$630,000). Following upon its initial recognition, the film was dubbed into Tamil, Malayalam, and Hindi, as well as being dubbed into Polish for a release in Poland as a Poszukiwany, becoming the first Telugu film released in Poland.
Trivikram’s next directorial Jalsa became the most anticipated film of the year 2008, with a release of 325 prints in 1000 theatres. The film’s audio rights were sold to Aditya Music for ₹9 million, the highest for a Telugu film ever in recent times. Jalsa became a major hit at box office by grossing ₹720 million (US$10 million) in 50 days. Jalsa was followed by Khaleja released on 7 October 2010, for which Trivikram directed Mahesh Babu in two Thums Up soft drink commercials to assist in promoting the film. Mahesh Khaleja was his next flick with an average verdict Khaleja collected ₹150 million (US$2.1 million) at global box office.
Trivikram provided the dialogues and screenplay for the film, Theenmaar, starring Pawan Kalyan and Trisha Krishnan in a remake of Love Aaj Kal released in March 2011. He then directed Julayi starring Allu Arjun and Illeana the film became a box-office hit. Next, he directed Attarintiki Daredi starring Pawan Kalyan and Samantha. It was released to high expectations and created an all time Telugu movie records. Despite being troubled with piracy version, which has up to 90 minutes of the movie and went online a few days before the official release of the movie, the film became an Industry hit, shattering all the previous box office records and collected a share of 100 crores”. He then directed S/O Satyamurthy starring Allu Arjun and Samantha. The film was released on 9 April 2015 to a general positive response. It grossed ₹905 million and netted a total of ₹519 million at the global box office during its full run. His A Aa starring Nithin and Samantha became a runaway hit as well. 2018 was a mixed bag for Trivikram, as his Agnyaathavaasi starring Pawan Kalyan, Keerthy Suresh, and Anu Emmanuel was declared a box office disaster, while his Aravinda Sametha Veera Raghava starring NTR Jr. and Pooja Hegde became a blockbuster, collecting more than ₹90 crores distributor share worldwide. His 2020 film Ala Vaikunthapurramloo starring Allu Arjun and Pooja Hegde became a mega blockbuster, collecting more than ₹100 crores distributor share worldwide. His upcoming project with NTR Jr. was announced in February 2020.
Filmography
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Denotes films that have not yet been released |
| Year | Film | Direction | Screenplay | Dialogues | Story |
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| 1999 | Swayamvaram |  |
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| 1999 | Samudram | |
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| 2000 | Ninne Premistha | |
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| 2000 | Nuvve Kavali | |
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| 2000 | Chiru Navvuto | |
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| 2001 | Nuvvu Naaku Nachav | |
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| 2002 | Vasu | |
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| 2002 | Nuvve Nuvve | |
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| 2002 | Manmadhudu | |
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| 2004 | Malliswari | |
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| 2005 | Athadu | |
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| 2005 | Jai Chiranjeeva | |
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| 2008 | Jalsa | |
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| 2010 | Khaleja | |
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| 2011 | Teen Maar | |
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| 2012 | Julai | |
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