Chennai · India
Elango Raghupathy
Producer. Founder. Entrepreneur. Storyteller. Crafting cinema that unsettles, startups that transform, and stories that outlast the screen.
Chennai · India
Producer. Founder. Entrepreneur. Storyteller. Crafting cinema that unsettles, startups that transform, and stories that outlast the screen.
I began my career as a First Assistant Director under the veteran director R.K. Selvamani — learning cinema from the inside out. What followed were two decades across fiction and non-fiction, television and OTT, independent film and enterprise technology.
As Executive Producer at Star Vijay, I shaped some of Tamil television's most-watched programmes. As a film producer under Karuvachy Films, I produced Maadathy: An Unfairy Tale, which premiered at the Busan International Film Festival in 2019 and earned critical acclaim worldwide.
Today I run Karkei — an AR-based experiential learning startup — alongside ERA Foundation, my social impact initiative working at the intersection of climate and community. I believe the best stories and the best products share one quality: they change how people see the world.
I am based in Chennai, where I was born and where I intend to build things for a long time to come.
An independent production house specialising in bold, socially conscious cinema. Co-founded with director Leena Manimekalai, Karuvachy Films produces narrative features and documentaries that travel international festival circuits and leave something lasting in the audience.
karuvachyfilms.com →An AR-based experiential learning platform transforming how students, professionals, and enterprises engage with knowledge. Three verticals: Karkei (schools & colleges), Karkei V (vocational & industrial training), and Karkei GS (white-label enterprise).
karkei.com →A social entrepreneurship initiative creating lasting change for underserved communities in Chennai. ERA Foundation works at the intersection of climate awareness, education, and community empowerment — translating urgency into ground-level action.
erafoundation.in →Every film under Karuvachy Films is built around a belief — that storytelling is an act of social intervention. From Busan to Mubi to Prime Video, these are projects that have started conversations that outlasted their running times.
An eagerly anticipated new Tamil feature releasing in 2025. Continuing the banner's commitment to bold, distinctive storytelling with an unflinching voice.
Learn More →A cyber thriller set in Chennai about sextortion, surveillance, and the violence of the digital age. The narrative enters the story only after the trap has already closed.
Learn More →A participatory eco-horror film co-created with Afro-Amazonian Indigenous Quilombola communities in Brazil — a film where the community is not a subject but a co-author.
Learn More →A hybrid feature — 60 minutes, Tamil with English subtitles. DCP, Dolby 5.1. Currently in development under Karuvachy Films.
Learn More →A drama in 4K Cinemascope across English, Tamil, Sinhala, Thai, and French. 120 minutes. A film that crosses geographies to tell a single, urgent story.
Learn More →A drama in 4K Cinemascope in English and Malayalam. 120 minutes. Rooted in the coastal landscapes and complex histories of Kerala's Malabar coast.
Learn More →Adaptation of TIME's 100 Must-Read Books of 2020 — The Pink Line: Journeys Across the World's Queer Frontiers by Mark Gevisser.
Learn More →A documentary in English, Malayalam, Hindi, Marwari, Urdu, and Manipuri. 90 minutes, 2K Cinemascope. A film about voice and resistance.
Learn More →A Tamil folklore drama following a Dalit girl from the "unseeable" Puthirai Vannaar caste. World premiere Busan IFF. Streaming on Mubi and Prime Video.
Learn More →Cinema vérité capturing lives shattered by three decades of ethnic war in Sri Lanka — set at Dhanushkodi, the southernmost tip of India.
Learn More →Notes from three extraordinary women — a funeral singer, a fisherwoman, a graveyard worker. Golden Conch MIFF. Nominated Munich and Asia Pacific Screen Awards.
Learn More →Two friends search for a rental apartment in Chennai and confront the stigma of being single, female, and transgender. A formally sharp mockumentary. Streaming on Mubi.
Learn More →A portrait of Dayamani Barla — the first female indigenous journalist and activist — and her tireless fight against corporations in Jharkhand, India.
Learn More →A film on enforced disappearances in Sri Lanka — the resilience of families across communities in their continued fight for justice.
Learn More →Leena Manimekalai enters the cavern of her own mind — and the tradition of Tamil foremothers, female poets from the Sangam era, that generated her power.
Learn More →The indigenous goddess takes a quintessential trip on being, belonging, and becoming in the streets of downtown Toronto.
Learn More →What the research actually says about why students disengage — and why the answer has nothing to do with effort or attitude.
Read on SubstackWhile the world debates policy, our children are already paying the price. This is what the data — and the streets — show.
Read on SubstackFrom R.K. Selvamani's floor to the Busan Film Festival — what I learned, what I unlearned, and what I carry.
Read on SubstackCinema, EdTech, social impact. To some people this looks scattered. Here is why, from where I stand, it is the only coherent choice.
Read on SubstackFor co-productions, collaborations, speaking invitations, or conversations about cinema, technology, and storytelling from Chennai.