Renjilal Damodaran

Renjilal Damodaran was born in a small village known as S.N.Puram, near Kottarakara, Kollam, in the state of Kerala, India. He was born to a teacher couple, Mr. R.Damodaran and  Mrs. K. Sarojini. He was educated in S.N.Puram Welfare School up to his fourth grade. He was also educated in Puthoor Government School and Kottarakara town U.P. School. He attended Sri Vidhyadhiraja Memorial Model High School, Vendar. He took part as an actor and performer in dramatics in his schools. He did his pre-graduation in D.B. College Sasthamkotta (1985–90). He had won the titles of the best actor and performer, best story writer, best director and many awards for dramatics. In 1986 he was the best actor in Kerala University Intercollegiate level. In 1989 he was elected as the editor for the then published college magazine named ‘Sadhana 1989’. He was elected as the University Union Counsellor of D.B.College.

He completed his masters in Malayalam literature from S.N.College, Kollam with first class in 1992. In 1993 he completed journalism from public relations of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram. He wrote a column about Cinema in ‘Janayugam’ weekly. In 1995, he completed Mphil from the University of Madras, Department of Malayalam and his thesis was the first thesis subject about cinema in India.

In 1995 he started his film career as an assistant director, under Bhadran the leading director of the time. In 1996, he joined C.T.M.A College, Guindy, Chennai as a lecturer in the Malayalam language. Soon, he resigned his job and started his work as an associate director. He worked with Thampi Kannanthanam in 1996, then with director and cameraman Venu for the film Daya scripted by M.T.Vasudevan Nair, and starring Manju  Varrier in both male and female roles. It received four national awards.

In 1998, he worked with Bhadran for the film Olympian Antony Adam starring Mohanlal and Meena. Then he took a break from the film industry to establish his business firm Damu and Sons Sales Corporation, Kottarakkara, Kerala.

In 2006 he made his debut as a director with his feature film Ennittum starring Kaniha, Siddharth Bharathan, Swarnamalya, and Dinu Dennis. He was inactive in the film industry for some time until his second film Naval Enna Jewel which was bilingual starring Adhil Hussain, Shwetha Menon, Reem Khadem and Anu Sithara.

List of awards and nominations received by Renjilal Damodaran for the movie ‘Nawal the Jewel’.

• Milan IFF 2018 Nominations Archives
• Amsterdam IFF 2018 Full Winners List
• Awards International Film Festival of Shimla 2018
• London IFF 2019 Winners
• From war zone to silver screen
• Shweta Menon's Naval Enna Jewel nominated for Amsterdam Film Festival - Times of India
• Naval Enna Jewel: Can you identify this actress dressed up like an old man? [PHOTOS+VIDEOS]