Nikkhil Advani

Nikkhil Advani
Nikkhil in 2020
Born	Nikhil Suresh Advani (1971-04-28) 28 April 1971 (age 52) Bombay, Maharashtra , India
Occupations	Director producer screenwriter
Years active	1996–present
Spouse	Suparna Gupta
Children	1

Nikkhil Suresh Advani (born 28 April 1971) is an Indian director, producer and screenwriter who works in Hindi cinema.^[1] He along with his sister, Monisha Advani and Madhu Bhojwani, co-founded the entertainment company Emmay Entertainment.^[2]

Early life and family

Advani was born and raised in

He studied at Green Lawns High School, Breach Candy,^[3] and later did his Masters in chemistry at St. Xavier's College, Mumbai.^[4] He married his college friend Suparna Gupta with whom he has a daughter Keya.^[5] Advani is the grand nephew of late producer N. N. Sippy and second cousin of actor Tusshar Kapoor and producer Ekta Kapoor.

His wife, Suparna Gupta is a child rights activist. Winner of the Ashoka Fellowship For Leading Social Entrepreneurship (2009) she graduated as an Edward S. Mason Fellow from Harvard Kennedy School of Government (2012) and co-founded a non-profit organization, Aangan which works on child trafficking, child marriage, and child labor.

Film career

Nikkhil’s film career spans over twenty five years. He began assisting art-house film directors, Saeed Mirza, Kundan Shah, and Sudhir Mishra. Subsequently, he worked under Dharma Productions, the production house of the late Yash Johar, father of Karan Johar and Yash Raj Films.

Advani started his career by assisting

(2003).

In 2009, Advani directed

action comedy film that stars Akshay Kumar and Deepika Padukone in the lead roles with Mithun Chakraborty and Hong Kong action cinema actor Gordon Liu. The film revolves around a vegetable cutter from Chandni Chowk in Delhi who finds himself on an adventure in China after the residents of an oppressed village deem him to be the reincarnation of a slain Chinese revolutionary. The film was distributed in the U.S. and co-produced by Warner Bros. It is Warner Bros. Pictures

first Hindi film. Released on 16 January 2009, it was the third highest-grossing film of the year at the Indian Box Office.

Following this Advani produced

Bollywood science fiction romance film directed by Milap Zaveri. It stars Riteish Deshmukh, Jacqueline Fernandez, Sonal Sehgal

, and Ruslaan Mumtaz in lead roles.

In 2006, Advani directed and wrote the story and screenplay Patiala House (2011) starring Rishi Kapoor, Dimple Kapadia, Akshay Kumar and Anushka Sharma in the title roles.

Advani is a National Award-winning filmmaker whose children's film Delhi Safari (2012) was India's first 3-D Stereoscopic animation feature. It advocated for wildlife conservation and is currently being developed into a full-fledged franchise in Hollywood.

After this release, Advani partnered with Monisha Advani and Madhu Bhojwani to form Emmay Entertainment, a motion picture production company. The first feature film produced by Emmay Entertainment was D-Day (2013), a film directed by Advani, in association with DAR Motion Pictures, which was released on 19 July 2013, which was received with positive reviews along with a few awards.

Advani's recent directorial work has been produced under the

Fox Star India, Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Sony

.

Headlined by Emmay Entertainment, the production house released films like

National Award.^[6]

Advani then teamed up with

Imran Khan and Kangana Ranaut in the lead roles. For his next film, Advani directed Hero (2015) a romantic action film co-written by Umesh Bist and himself, a remake of Subhash Ghai's 1983 blockbuster film of the same name. The film starred debutantes Sooraj Pancholi and Athiya Shetty

,

Advani’s latest release was Batla House (2019), an

post traumatic stress disorder. The film was theatrically released in India on 15 August 2019 during Independence Day

weekend. It became commercially successful at the box office.

In addition to his directorial work, he has produced several films by other directors under the Emmay banner. Like Airlift (2016), Lucknow Central (2017), Satyameva Jayate (2018), Baazaar (2018), Marjaavaan (2019), Indoo Ki Jawani (2020), Bell Bottom (2021), Satyameva Jayate 2 (2021).

Other ventures

Web series

In 2020, Advani produced and co-wrote his first web series, Hasmukh, for Netflix. It was directed by Nikhil Gonsalves and written by Suparn Verma, Vir Das, Nikkhil Advani, Amogh Ranadive, and Neeraj Pandey. Headlined by Vir Das as ‘Hasmukh’ and Ranvir Shorey as ‘Jimmy’ the show also consisted of Amrita Bagchi, Mantra, Ravi Kishan, Manoj Pahwa, Joanna Robaczewska, Raza Murad, among others. Adavni's Emmay Entertainment created the show in association with Applause Entertainment.

On 26 November 2020, Advani announced his second web series,

26/11, for Amazon Prime Video. It was directed by both Nikkhil Advani and Nikhil Gonsalves and starred a huge cast of Mohit Raina, Tina Desai, Konkona Sen Sharma, Shreya Dhanwanthary, Prakash Belawadi, Mishal Raheja, Satyajeet Dubey, Natasha Bharadwaj, and Mrunmayee Deshpande

amongst others. It released on 9 September 2021 to critical acclaim and became the most-watched web series on Prime Video.

Short films

Emmay produced the short film, Guddu Engineer (2016) for the Zeal for Unity in 2016. Targeted at Indo-Pak unity, it was based on Rumi’s poem, "Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it". Directed by Advani, Guddu Engineer it won awards at the 5th Mumbai Shorts International Film Festival.

Richa Chadha, Sumeet Vyas, and Ishwak Singh

. The plot focuses on the fall and ultimate rise of Chadha's character as she comes to terms with her husband's indiscretions with the help of a friendly neighbor.

Television

A TV Film called Shaadi Vaadi And All That, an hour-long film for MTV, produced by Advani is a love triangle with a twist. The show is Kaashvi Nair's directorial debut who worked with Advani as an assistant director.

Advani has directed a finite TV Series

Bollywood celebrities have praised the trailer. The show was premiered at the MAMI film fest followed by a talk with Gideon Raff

.

Non-film work

In his spare time, Advani enjoys working with Bittu Sahgal and is a member of the Board of Sanctuary Nature Foundation, which advocates climate change, biodiversity, nature conservation and save the tiger's cause.[9] He is also actively involved in the restoration of Classic Films working along with Shiven Dungarpur and the Film Heritage Foundation. He also collaborates with Srila Chaterjee and Mahesh Mathai, curating the art house cinema for Baro Film Night. An avid Soccer fan, he works with Sarah White, Head of Partnership Marketing – APAC, City Football Marketing, to advocate and promote Manchester City Football Club in Mumbai.

Filmography

Films

Year	Title	Functioned as			Notes
		Director	Writer	Producer
1996	Is Raat Ki Subah Nahin	No	Yes	No
1998	Kuch Kuch Hota Hai	Associate	No	No
2000	Mohabbatein	Associate	No	No
2001	Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham...	Associate	No	No
2003	Kal Ho Naa Ho	Yes	No	No
2007	Salaam-e-Ishq	Yes	Yes	No
2009	Chandni Chowk to China	Yes	No	No
2010	Jaane Kahan Se Aayi Hai	No	No	Yes
2011	Patiala House	Yes	Yes	No
2012	Delhi Safari	Yes	Yes	No
2013	D-Day	Yes	Yes	No
2014	Shaadi Vaadi & All That	No	No	Yes	Television film
2015	Hero	Yes	Yes	No
	Katti Batti	Yes	Yes	No
2016	Airlift	No	No	Yes
	Guddu Engiineer	Yes	No	No	Short film
2017	Lucknow Central	No	No	Yes
2018	Satyameva Jayate	No	No	Yes
	Baazaar	No	No	Yes
2019	Batla House	Yes	No	No
	Marjaavaan	No	No	Yes
2020	Indoo Ki Jawani	No	No	Yes
	Unpaused	Yes	No	No	Segment: "Apartment"
2021	Sardar Ka Grandson	No	No	Yes
	Satyameva Jayate 2	No	No	Yes
	Bell Bottom	No	No	Yes
2023	Mrs Chatterjee Vs Norway	No	No	Yes
	Dry Day	No	No	Yes
2024	Vedaa	Yes	No	No

Television

Year	Title	Functioned as				Notes
		Creator	Director	Writer	Producer
2016-2017	P.O.W. - Bandi Yuddh Ke	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
2017	The Mini Truck	No	No	No	Yes	Reality show
2020	Hasmukh	Yes	No	No	Yes
2021–2023	Mumbai Diaries 26/11	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Co-directed with Nikhil Gonsalves
2021	The Empire	Yes	No	No	No
2022	Kaun Banegi Shikharwati	No	No	No	Yes
2022-2023	Rocket Boys	Yes	No	No	No
2023	Adhura	No	No	No	Yes
TBA	Freedom At Midnight †	Yes	Yes	TBA	Yes	Filming[10]

Other credits

Assistant director

• Is Raat Ki Subah Nahin (1996)
• Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998)
• Mohabbatein (2000)
• Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham
  (2001)

Actor

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1998	Kuch Kuch Hota Hai	Guest on The Neelam Show	Uncredited cameo

References

1. ^ "Extra k in name". The Times of India. Archived from the original on 6 April 2018. Retrieved 4 June 2016.
2. ^ "Nikhil Advani and his partners unveil exciting plans for film and TV". The Times of India. 29 January 2016. Retrieved 26 July 2016.
3. Indian Express
   , 5 December 2003.
4. ^ Advani Archived 25 May 2011 at the Wayback Machine, Rediff.com
5. ^ "I was extremely confused after leaving Dharma: Nikkhil Advani". The Times of India. 22 July 2013. Retrieved 20 February 2015.
6. ^ "Akshay Kumar's next is Airlift". The Indian Express. 29 August 2014. Retrieved 20 February 2015.
7. ^ "'Batla House': 5 Things You Need To Know About the John Abraham Film And the Encounter It's Based On". Mashable India. 10 July 2019.
8. ^ "How Nikkhil Advani Hopes To Disrupt Indian Television With 'P.O.W. - Bandi Yuddh Ke'". Huffington Post India.
9. ^ "Launch of Delhi Safari's "Fight for us Write for us" Campaign!". Bolly Spice. 11 August 2012. Retrieved 20 February 2015.
10. ISSN 0971-751X
    . Retrieved 15 July 2022.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Nikhil Advani.

• Nikkhil Advani at
  IMDb 
• Nikkhil Advani at Bollywood Hungama