Santosh Sivan honored with Padma Shri!

The most awarded Indian Director of Photography (DOP) Santosh Sivan now has one more national honor to his name. He has been conferred the Padma Shri award by the Government of India on the eve of 65^th Republic Day, for his contribution to Indian cinema over the last two decades.

An FTII graduate, Santosh Sivan began his career as a cinematographer with the 1986 Malayalam film Nidhiyude Katha followed by other critically acclaimed films such as Raakh, Thalapathi, Roja and Aham. He also won National Award for  Best Cinematography for the films like Perumthachan (Malyalam), Kalapani (Malyalam), Mohiniyattam (Malayalam), Iruvar (Tamil) and Dil se…(Hindi).

The founding member of Indian Society of Cinematographer (ISC), Santosh Sivan also boasts of being the first Cinematographer in Asia Pacific to be honored with American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) membership.

As a director, Santosh won his first National Award in 1988 for the film Story of Tiblu (1988). His film Halo was honored at the 43rd National Film Awards as the Best Children’s Film and Best Sound. Some of his internationally acclaimed films as a director are Terrorist, Malli, Asoka and Halo.

Along with the 45 features films, the celebrated cinematographer also has 41 documentaries to his credit that include Farmers Portrait and Prarambha.