K. Viswanath

Kasinadhuni Viswanath was born on 19 February 1930 in Repalle of Guntur district, Andhra Pradesh.[26] His parents were Kasinadhuni Subramanyam and Kasinadhuni Saraswathy (Saraswathamma) and his ancestral roots come from Pedapulivarru, Andhra Pradesh, a small village on the banks of River Krishna.[27][28] Kasinadhuni was his family name, Viswanath was his given name. Viswanath studied Intermediate from Guntur Hindu College, and holds a BSc degree from Andhra Christian College of Andhra University.[29] He began his career as a sound recordist at Vauhini Studios in Madras, where his father was an associate. There, he apprenticed under the guidance of A Krishnan, who was the Head of Sound Engineering at Vauhini. Viswanath and A Krishnan developed a close rapport and later after the former made the transition into film direction, he would always bounce ideas off the latter. Viswanath made his entry into film direction at Annapurna Pictures under Adurthi Subba Rao and K. Ramnoth.[30][31] He wished to work as an assistant to director K. Balachander and Bapu.[29]

During his early career, Viswanath was associated with Adurthi Subba Rao on National Award-winning films such as Mooga Manasulu (1964) and Doctor Chakravarty (1964).[2][3] Viswanath scripted Sudigundalu (1968), and directed works such as Aatma Gowravam (1965), O Seeta Katha (1974) and Jeevana Jyothi (1975) which garnered the state Nandi Awards, and were screened at the Asian and African film Festival at Tashkent.[32][4]

In 1951 he started as an assistant director in the Telugu-Tamil Film Pathala Bhairavi (1951). In 1965, Viswanath debuted as a director with Telugu film Aatma Gowravam (1965), which won the Nandi Award for Best Feature Film of the year. Viswanath followed it up with drama films Chelleli Kapuram (1971), Sarada (1973), O Seeta Katha (1974) and Jeevana Jyoti (1975) which are women-centric films.[2][3] It was in Siri Siri Muvva (1976) that the artistic touch in his craft first became visible.[2][3]

Sankarabharanam (1980) highlights the neglect of traditional Indian music under the increasing influence of western music. The film brings out the grandeur of Carnatic music, the traditional South Indian music towards the end. Bhaskaran, a media and film researcher from Chennai has documented, in his study of South Indian music culture, how Sankarabharanam contributed to the revival of Carnatic music in a big way.[33] The film broke many commercial records by running for over one year in cinemas. In a recent study published in Journal of Dance, Movements & Spiritualities published by "Intellect Group" of the United Kingdom, C. S. H. N. Murthy, a media and film studies scholar from India, has demonstrated how Viswanath's filmography embraces a wide spectrum of characters that include mentally and physically challenged subjects as well, like the film Sarada (1973), which exploits a psychologically deranged woman, Swathi Muthyam (1986), which exploits an autistic man's humanism, Sirivennela (1986) which revels in situations between deaf and dumb characters, and Kalam Marindi (1972), which dwells on characters stuck in a caste-based society.[2][3]

Film researcher, C. S. H. N. Murthy observed that Viswanath's films offer a pathway towards inclusiveness, affecting positive spiritual change at both personal and social levels. Situating the content in the broad arena of de-westernizing media studies, through immersive and culturally embedded perspectives, Murthy endeavoured to offer modern and postmodern dimensions in Viswanath's films.[2][3]

Viswanath was married to Kasinadhuni Jayalakshmi. Actor Chandra Mohan, singer S. P. Balasubrahmanyam and singer S. P. Sailaja were his cousins.[41]

Viswanath died on 2 February 2023, at the age of 92 in Hyderabad.[42][43][44]

President Mukherjee presenting the Dadasaheb Phalke Award to Sh. Vishwanath at the 64th National Film Awards on 3 May 2017.

Honorary doctorate

• Potti Sreeramulu Telugu University

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Kasinathuni Viswanath.

• K. Viswanath at IMDb