When we say, Kalatapasvi, for Telugu Film lovers just one name would come to their mind, K. Vishwanath. His films have created greater impact on Telugu households with their unique screenplay and emphasis on Telugu nativity. He always brought in complex stories to the forefront in a simple and uncomplicated way.
Kaisinathuni Vishwanath, started off his career as a sound engineer and looking at his penchant to tell a story, Adurthi Subba Rao took him in as an assistant director. His writing used to be best according to Akkineni Nageswara Rao and he used fair the scenes and dialogues for all the actors. And his way of explaining the scenes and concentration shown in understanding the craft, impressed Akkineni more and he gave him his first film as a director, Aatma Gouravam. He delivered a hit in his first attempt and went on to make films with other heroes and mostly in commercial format.
With films like Neramu Shiksha, Chelleli Kapuram, Jeevana Jyothi, Kaalam Marindi, Sharada he established himself as a maker and received awards too. But after Siri Siri Muvva and Seethamalakshmi, he concentrated bringing forgotten Telugu culture to the forefront in his movies. His first attempt Shankarabharanam to create a completely arts oriented movie with Shankara Sastry as protagonist, created a sensation in Telugu Cinema. It changed the look out of many filmmakers and even today it is revered as the best screenplay for a music based film.
After this, he stopped thinking about commerciality in a film and made it his mission to create stories featuring various artists as leads with arts taking bigger place. He also wrote world class scripts with characters that were completely based on various sections of society and also tried to say what is wrong with the age old traditions that we follow blindly.
In Swathi Muthyam, he said there is no wrong in widow desiring to marry and also asked people to treat any person with mental illness with respect. Same man once again questioned the tradition of denying a woman her right to love and marrying a person from another caste. He said caste discrimination in today's world should die. Similarly, in many of his movies, he brought out the ego issues, self-destructive nature and determination to live beyond any kind of discomforts.
For his penchant to create great Cinema he won 8 Filmfare awards for Best director, 5 films of his won National Awards, 20 Nandi Awards and Indian Government awarded him Padma Shree in 1992. Now, he is receiving Dada Saheb Phalke Award for his work towards arts and he will be given a Swarna Kamal with 10 lakhs prize money. I&B Minister, Venkaiah Naidu announced this through his Twitter handle and we Telugu Cinema lovers can now sing, " Nadha Vinodamu Kasinathuni vilasamu prama anandamu paluku Telugu prajalu"
