Pawan Kumar (Director) Wiki, Age, Wife, Family, Biography & More

Pawan Kumar is an Indian director, screenwriter, actor, and producer, who works primarily in the Kannada film industry. He is known for the films Manasaare (2009), Pancharangi (2010), Lucia (2013), and Dhoomam (2023).

Wiki/Biography

Pawan Prabhakar Bhongale, aka Pawan Kumar, was born on Friday, 29 October 1982 (age 41 years; as of 2023) in Anantapur, Pamidi, Andhra Pradesh, India. His zodiac sign is Scorpio.

He started his school education at the Indian Preparatory School, Srirampuram, and continued at Vasavi Educational Trust, J. P. Nagar, Bengaluru from 1992 to 1998. He completed his twelfth grade at The National College in Jayanagar, Bengaluru from 1998 to 2000. He got interested in theatre and dropped out of his engineering course at the PES University (PESU), formerly known as PESIT, in Bengaluru, Karnataka, where he studied from 2000 to 2002.

Physical Appearance

Height (approx.): 5′ 9″

Weight (approx.): 70 kg

Hair Colour: Salt and Pepper

Eye Colour: Black

Family

Pawan belongs to a Hindu family from Maharashtra settled in Bengaluru.

Parents & Siblings

Pawan Kumar’s father, Siddojirao Prabhakar Prasad Bhongale, is one of the directors at Pawan Kumar Studios Private Limited. His younger brother’s name is Kishan Kumar.

Wife & Children

Pawan met Sowmya Jaganmurthy during the shooting of the film Pancharangi (2010) and got married on 6 June 2010.

Sowmya is a classical dancer, film producer and actor. They have a daughter named Laasya Pasowna (Lucy).

Career

Theatre

Pawan Kumar worked in theatre for a couple of years after discontinuing his education, initially with the Script Peoples Theatre from August 2002 till March 2003 and then as a freelance consultant. He started a theatre company called ACTor Company, which offered innovative ways of theatre productions. He wrote, directed and performed in the show, The Woman in Me (2017).

For a brief time, he moved to Mumbai, where he worked as a Senior technical consultant at Dell for almost 2 months, from February 2006 to March 2006 and as an Executive Producer at Neela Tele Films Private Ltd. from March 2006 to December 2006. He returned to Bengaluru and pursued his career in acting and directing. He returned to the theatre in 2023 with a show he wrote during the initial years of his career, called The Final Rehearsal (2023). He directed and performed the solo show.

Film

Director & Screenwriter

Pawan Kumar joined the team of director Yogaraj Bhat and wrote the stories for the Kannada films Manasaare (2009) and Pancharangi (2010). Both films were a commercial success. His directorial debut was the Kannada film Lifeu Ishtene (2011) for which he also wrote the story and screenplay.

He directed and wrote Lucia (2013) which became a turning point in his career. It was the first crowd-funded film in the Kannada film industry.

 

His next Kannada film U-Turn (2016) was a supernatural thriller film which received wide critical acclaim. The film was first remade in the Malayalam as Careful (2017) directed by V. K. Prakash. It was remade in Tamil and Telugu, under the name U-Turn (2018) itself, which was directed by Pawan Kumar.

He also directed the Netflix Hindi Web series Leila (2019) and the Telugu web series Kudi Yedamaithe (2021).

Pawan Kumar’s first film in Malayalam was Dhoomam (2023), an action thriller featuring Fahadh Faasil and Aparna Balamurali.

 

Actor

He first acted in the Kannada film Mr. Garagasa (2008) in a minor role. Some of the roles he essayed were, Dollar in the Kannada film Manasaare (2009), Lakshman Rao (Lucky) in the Kannada film Pancharangi (2010), Techie Phaneesh in the Kannada film Gultoo (2018), Bhushan in the Kannada film Gaalipata 2 (2022), and a cameo appearance in the Kannada film Hostel Hudugaru Bekagiddare (2023).

Producer

He was the producer for the Kannada films Lucia, U-Turn, and Ondu Motteya Kathe. He was the co-producer for the Kannada film Ikkat and the Telugu web series Kudi Yedamaithe.

Entrepreneur

Pawan is one of the directors of Pawan Kumar Studios Private Ltd, a film company.

Awards

• In 2011, Pawan Kumar won the Best Director Award at the Bangalore Times Film Awards for the film Lifeu Ishtene. ^[1]The Times of India

• In 2012, he won the British Council’s Young Creative Entrepreneur (YCE) Award in the Digital for Creative Industries category.
  

  Pawan Kumar with the British Council Young Creative Entrepreneur Award

• In 2013, he won the Best Director – Kannada Award at the 61st Filmfare Awards – South and the Audience Choice Award at the London Indian Film Festival for the film Lucia.

• He won the Best Direction Award and the Best Story Award for the film U-Turn at the 2nd International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) Awards for 2016, at an event organised in 2017.
  

  Pawan Kumar with IIFA Awards

• He received the Best Film Award for the film Onda Motteya Kathe at the 65th Filmfare Awards South.

Facts/Trivia

• Pawan had Alopecia, an autoimmune disorder, because of which he used to lose patches of hair.

• As of 2024, Pawan has 1 lakh subscribers on his YouTube channel and over 70k followers on his Instagram account.

• He is a TEDx speaker and has given a speech on the Art of Quitting, based on his life experiences and choices. He later gave another TEDx speech on the crowdfunding model of film-making, titled Movie for the People, by the People, and of the People.
  

  Pawan Kumar at the TEDx event

• Pawan and his wife have a farmland and art hub called The Pasowna’s Farm by the river Kapila in Hullahalli near Mysore.

• He follows a nonvegetarian food habit.

• He revealed in an interview that he is scared of heights and dogs, likes all types of gadgets, especially a mobile phone, and is irritated at people who constantly complain without trying. He also mentioned his fantasy about living life as in the film Before Sunrise (1995).

• In an interview, he revealed that he wishes to work as a teacher for school children for some time.