Akshat Varma Director and Screenplay Writer The Award-Winning Film-Maker from Mumbai
Akshat Verma is an Indian filmmaker who had written the screenplay of the hugely successful film "Delhi Belly" (2011) produced by Aamir Khan. Apart from writing the screenplay, Akshat was also the assistant director, editor and song-writer in this film. For his work he received numerous awards.
A graduate in screen-writing from California university in USA, Akshat wrote the screenplay for the film The Ode(2008), directed by Nilanjan Neil Lahiri and starring Sachin Bhatt, Wilson Cruz and Sakina Jaffrey. The film was an adaptation of the novel Ode to Lata by Ghalib Shiraz Dhalla.
In 2016, he wrote, directed and produced the critically acclaimed short film Mama's Boys starring Aditi Rao Haidari, Neena Gupta, Arshad Warsi, Jim Sarbh, and others, which provided a modern take on the epic Mahabharat.
Akshat's last film was Kaalakaandi (2018), which he wrote and directed and which starred Saif Ali Khan.
Based on the screenplays of Delhi Belly and Kaalakaandi, I think that Akshat's distinctive story-telling style has been films with different intersecting stories that make you think of the Russian Matrioska dolls, especially in terms of layers and meanings. People and events in his stories feel like mismatching puzzle pieces which somehow come together miraculously at the end. I wish that he will write a third matrioska-puzzle screenplay to complete a trilogy of such films, except that this time I would like him to use a more light, colourful and airy context to weave his story - a dark comedy full of colours and light.
Anyway, right now (2022-23) Akshat is busy shooting a serial for an OTT platform.
Brief Biographical Note
Akshat was born in Delhi (1972) and he studied in Salwan Public School. Both his parents were professors in Delhi University. He worked briefly in advertising before leaving for Los Angles where he studied screenplay writing at the California university (UCLA). He is married and has a son. He divides his time between India and USA.
About Akshat's Films
The Ode (2008)
Delhi Belly (2011)
Mama's Boys (2016)
KaalaKaandi (2018)