As Mediente Films completes 20 years in the global film and entertainment industry, we look back at the journey of its maverick founder Manu Kumaran, to understand how this independent film producer continues to thrive and succeed, making films not only in India but also for global audiences.
Manu Kumaran setup up Medient in 2002 (now called Mediente Films) and the two decades since has seen him wear many a hat - from backing genre defining films and nicknamed as the producer who can produce films no one can to running Medient Studios, a publicly listed company (Medient Studios inc, mdnt) as CEO. From producing more than 20 features films in seven different languages to being dubbed as India’s Must Meet Man at Cannes Film Festival by Pickle magazine, Manu Kumaran has come a long way from his days as an All-India Radio anchor in Trivandrum, Kerala.
Born, Bred and buttered in Trivandrum, Manu Kumaran son of international award-winning producer KP Kumaran and the winner of the JC Daniel award in 2022, pivoted from a fledging career as media planner with agencies like Lintas, MAA Bozell and Euro RSCG to producing films with ‘Bombay Boys’.
In 2002, Manu Kumaran established Medient and created ABOB ( ‘A Band of Boys’), India’s first boy band. He then leveraged ABOB’s success to produce ‘Kiss Kis Ko’, a film based on the band’s life.
2004 was also the beginning of a trend in the Indian film industry to shoot films abroad to avail tax credits. But Manu Kumaran had a different plan. He wanted to shoot abroad not for tax credits but to create global quality films by bring together the best of technicians from India and the West. In 2006 he moved base to London and try and give the audience a superlative filmed experience. One of the films that was produced was the Malayalam film ‘Aakashagopuram’.
Starring Mohan Lal and based on Henrik Ibsen’s play ‘Master Builder’, the film’s music was scored by BAFTA (The British Academy of Film and Television Arts) and Emmy Award-winning British soundtrack composer John Altman (‘Golden Eye’, ‘Titanic’, ‘Bhaji On The Beach’ and ‘Shall We Dance’). The sound design was done by Nigel Holland of ‘Batman Begins’, ‘Braveheart’ and ‘Resident Evil’ fame. Rerecording mixers for the film were Robert Farr (‘Star Wars: Episode II&III’ and ‘Gangs Of New York’) and Matthew Gough (‘Harry Potter Prisoner Of Azkaban’ and ‘Cold Mountain’). The visual effects of the film was handled by John Harvey and Jonathan Trussler of ‘Kingdom of Heaven’.
Perhaps the first and only Indian producer to successfully produce films in Hollywood for western audiences Manu Kumaran produced ‘Yellow’, a completely American film directed by the avant-garde Nick Cassavetes, son of the venerated Hollywood couple, actor Gena Rowlands, (seen in the film) and the late actor/director John Cassavetes which was premiered at the Toronto Film Festival.
Manu Kumaran took an active break from producing films when he took up the role of CEO of Medient Studios, a publicly traded company (Medient Studios Inc, mdnt), to try and build the Studioplex then touted as the world's biggest film studio complex. Unfortunately, the plans did not fructify and Manu Kumaran bounced back to active film production with the simultaneous remakes of Queen in four South Indian languages, thus hitting another another global first. Filmed in Paris, Athens, Nice, Frejus, St Raphael, Mysore, Hyderabad, Gokarna, Virudhunagar and Mumbai, the Queen Remakes were shot simultaneously across locations in Europe and India.