Anand Gandhi

Biography:

Anand Gandhi, an Indian filmmaker, entrepreneur, media producer, inventor, and systems researcher, was born Anand Modi on September 26, 1980. In addition, he founded and serves as CEO of Memesys Culture Lab, a systems think tank and new media studio in Mumbai. The National Film Award for Best Picture went to his first feature film, Ship of Theseus (2013), which debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival. Tumbbad, Gandhi’s second film as creative director, executive producer, and screenwriter, debuted to widespread praise during Critics’ Week at the 75th Venice Film Festival in October 2018.

In 2017, he produced An Insignificant Man, a factual thriller on the growth of the Aam Aadmi Party in India that was directed by Khushboo Ranka and Vinay Shukla. It was widely praised both domestically and internationally upon its premiere. Vice decided to distribute the movie internationally.

The rights to Gandhi’s play Beta Kaagdo were purchased by actor and producer Ajay Devgn. Bollywood actress Kajol starred in the feature film Helicopter Eela. Gandhi is also a co-creator of ElseVR, the first virtual reality (VR) platform in India, which aims to popularize “extraordinary and urgent stories” online. Zain Memon’s board games SHASN and SHASN: Azadi were produced by him.

Gandhi was a mentor at the Xprize Visioneers 2016 Summit, an annual event of the Xprize enterprise, a prominent international non-profit organization committed to promoting “radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity” through incentive prize competitions. In his 2013 INK Talk at the annual INK conference, he listed his reasons for making films while elaborating on the role of memes in choice-creation.

Gandhi was the creative director of the 48th International Film Festival of India’s (IFFI) new VR chapter while serving on the steering committee. On Sunday, Anand Gandhi celebrated the seventh anniversary of his film Ship of Theseus by revealing a poster for his upcoming project, Emergence. Gandhi describes Emergence, which takes place in a post-pandemic future, as “the story of bit by bit building of resilience through human ingenuity as scientists and everyday heroes create solutions.”