Prakash Belawadi

Belawadi was born into a family of theatre artistes in Bangalore, in the erstwhile Mysore State (now Karnataka).[7] His father, Belavadi Nanjundaiah Narayan (1929–2003) popularly known as Make-up Nani, was a personality in Kannada theatre, who also appeared in films, and worked as a make-up artist alongside. His mother, Bhargavi, is a renowned film and theatre artiste. His siblings Sujata, Sudha and Pradeep, and nieces and nephews are also variously connected with theatre, music, television and cinema.[8] He completed his elementary education at Mahila Seva Samaja, higher school education in National High School, following which he completed his pre-university course at National College, Bangalore.[9] He obtained a degree in mechanical engineering from University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering in 1983,.[10]

• Prakash Belawadi's debut film Stumble, which he wrote and directed, won the National Award for Best Film in the English language, 2003.[11]
• He was conferred ‘Pratibha Bhushan’ in 2003 by the Government of Karnataka for his contribution to culture.[12]
• He was recipient of Karnataka Nataka Academy Award (2011–12) for his contribution to English and Kannada language theatre,[13] and
• He was awarded the ‘Pride of Karnataka’ by Bangalore Round Table (2015),.[14]
• He was the ‘Varshada Kannadiga’ (2015) in the field of entertainment, conferred by News 18 Kannada.[15]
• He was given Helpmann Award, Australia (2019) for Best Actor, Male in the play 'Counting and Cracking', Belvoir St. Theatre, Sydney".[16][17]

Belawadi as mentioned earlier has participated in many seminars, conferences and festivals in India[18][19][20][21][22] and abroad, including the Beyond Bollywood conference at the Gothenburg International Film Festival, 2010 [23] the Performing Arts Market conference in Seoul, 2011 [24] the 50th Theatertreffen – annual theatre festival meet at Berlin, 2013 [25] and the seminar and exhibition, ‘Nature – A Good Idea’ at Trollhättan, Sweden in 2014.[26] He has been faculty for film courses in Sweden and Istanbul, Turkey.[27]

Belawadi is one of the founding members of Citizens for Bengaluru, an active platform for people to engage with the city government to make it accountable to citizens.[32] Belawadi curates ‘Rotary Avani’, an annual ecology festival in Bengaluru between 22 April, International Mother Earth Day and 5 June, World Environment Day, to create awareness about the environment, in The Five Elements – Earth, Water, Fire, Air and Sky, so that people, together with government, industry, business and citizens can participate in initiatives to improve urban ecological health.[33][34]

• Prakash Belawadi at IMDb