Chittaranjan Giri

Biography:

Chittaranjan Giri is an Indian actor primarily associated with Bollywood. He completed his Bachelor’s degree and a master’s in Dramatology from the National School of Drama in 1993. In 1995, he tied the knot with Ashwini Giri, also an actress known for her role in Shwaas (2005), and together they have a daughter named Unnati. Before venturing into mainstream Bollywood, Chittaranjan was active in theater, both acting in and directing plays. He directed various productions including Pratibimb, Gunda, DillikiDeewar, Wang Chu, and SapneChuttanDubeKe.

In addition to playing lead roles in plays like Shylock in Merchant of Venice and Romeo in Romeo Juliet aur Andhra, he was involved in stage design, music, lighting, and scripting. He made his Bollywood debut with the film Dr. Ambedkar (2000) and went on to appear in several movies including Kasoor (2001), Lajja (2001), Makdee (2002), Matrubhumi (2003), Chot (AajIsko, KalTereko) (2004), MangalPandey: The Rising (2005), Faisla (2005), Raja BhaiLageyRaho…(2005), 1971 (2007), The Abeer Color (2009), Saluun (2009), Pad Man (2018), Bhonsle (2018), Super 30 (2019), and Baba (2019).

Chittaranjan gained widespread acclaim for his lead role in the Konkani film Paltadacho Munis (2009) or The Man Beyond the Bridge, which won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Konkani and received international recognition at the Toronto International Film Festival and the International Film Festival of India in 2009. In his first Marathi feature film Lathe Joshi (2016), he portrayed the titular character alongside his wife, Ashwini Giri, who played his on-screen wife as well.

The film received positive reviews from critics and was nominated at various film festivals. Chittaranjan himself received nominations for Best Actor at the Asia-Pacific Film Festival in 2018 and at the Taiwan Film Festival. He also appeared in several short films such as Kashmakash (2018) and Black Label (2019), for which he won the Best Male Actor Award at the National Short Film Festival, Malvan.

Additionally, Chittaranjan contributed as a co-writer and script supervisor for the movie Mr. Lieutenant Radio (2014) and served as an acting coach in the film Lahore (2010). Besides acting, he has taught acting at prestigious institutions like MIT, FLAME University, Pune, and LONI, Pune, and conducted acting workshops across the country. Currently, he is balancing his film commitments while imparting acting and theater training to selected students in Mumbai.