Nagendra Karri (born November 28, 1988) is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He made his feature film

directorial debut This is a list of film directorial debuts in chronological order. The films and dates referred to are a director's first commercial cinematic release. Many film makers have directed works which were not commercially released, for example early work ...

with the suspense thriller Where are you Sophia (2010).He followed it with his critically acclaimed film Mobster (2015). Karri received widespread recognition in 2018 for writing social Cold War drama Stanley Cage that is being turned into a feature film to be released in 2020. Karri entered the Hollywood film Industry in 2008, following a brief stint as a Wall Street finance executive. After years of working on numerous theatre plays as an assistant director and

scriptwriter A screenplay writer (also called screenwriter, scriptwriter, scribe or scenarist) is a writer who practices the craft of screenwriting, writing screenplays on which mass media, such as films, television programs and video games, are based. T ...

, he made his debut as a director during 2010 with the popular suspense thriller Where are you Sophia (WAYS) that was selected for

Cannes Cannes ( , , ; oc, Canas) is a city located on the French Riviera. It is a commune located in the Alpes-Maritimes department, and host city of the annual Cannes Film Festival, Midem, and Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. T ...

and Tribeca film festivals. Karri's "Where are you Sophia" which premiered in Tribeca film festival during 2010 garnered huge commercial and critical success paving the way for many social dramas that were written by him and was produced by Eternal mind media group.

Early life

Karri graduated with Bachelors in Computer Science & Engineering from JNTU,

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to the ...

. At 20, Karri landed in United States of America to pursue his higher education. He graduated with Masters in Computer Science & Electronics Engineering from

Oregon State University Oregon State University (OSU) is a public land-grant, research university in Corvallis, Oregon. OSU offers more than 200 undergraduate-degree programs along with a variety of graduate and doctoral degrees. It has the 10th largest engineering c ...

, Oregon. His other educational pursuits include a Masters in Film Making & Direction from

University of California Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...

, CA. Filmmaking was Karri's first love, but he had to pursue his career in finance and

Information technology Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of Data (computing), data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information te ...

and only got into the film business after years of being an understudy to successful producers and directors in his field.

Career

Nagendra Karri started his career working with a private brokerage firm

LPL Financial LPL Financial Holdings, Inc. (commonly referred to as LPL Financial) was founded in 1989 and is considered the largest independent broker-dealer in the United States. As of 2021 the company had more than 17,500 financial advisors, over US$1 tril ...

, San Diego. He moved to New York City in 2006, and worked on a high-end security system for

Department of Health A health department or health ministry is a part of government which focuses on issues related to the general health of the citizenry. Subnational entities, such as states, counties and cities, often also operate a health department of their ow ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. He started Eternal Mind Productions in 2007 with the backing of some venture capitalists and indie film producers that paved his way for directing his debut film. His first few original film scripts include "Mobster - A Call for the New Order", "Where are you Sophia?", "GATE 21", "Chronicles of Kurukshetra", "Human Aliens", and "The Reds". In 2009, Nagendra Karri directed and produced Where are you Sophia?, a psychological suspense thriller which had a worldwide release in early Feb 2010 and premiered in the Cannes film festival, IFFI and Tribeca. In 2012, Nagendra Karri formed the two hundred million "Al-Muhaymin" film fund with a syndicate of Middle Eastern Investors which produced commercially successful and critical acclaimed independent hollywood and Arabic film projects from 2012-15. Karri was roped in as the CEO of skanda media group in 2016 which has helped skanda media branch into infrastructure domain for media and entertainment projects in Louisiana. Skanda media under Karri's leadership has partnered with Chinese investment fund to undertake a major studio construction project that is expected to be completed in 2022. Karri is currently working to come up with his next upcoming release in 2020, "Stanley Cage".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Karri, Nagendra Writers from Oregon Oregon State University alumni 1982 births Living people American people of Indian descent American film producers English-language film directors American people of Telugu descent