# Prakash Belawadi

Prakash Belawadi (born 3 March 1961) is an Indian actor, director and screenwriter, who works predominately in English, Kannada and Hindi theatre, films and television. He is also a theatre teacher, activist and a journalist. He hails from Bengaluru. He has participated in many seminars, conferences and festivals in India and abroad. He is a motivational speaker at events and TEDx conferences. He is also a mentor with the founding team of BISFF (Bengaluru International Short Film Festival) since 2010.
Belawadi prefers stage acting as opposed to film acting.

## Early life

Belawadi was born into a family of theatre artists in Bangaluru, in the erstwhile Mysuru State (now Karnataka). His father, Belawadi Nanjundaiah Narayan (1929–2003) popularly known as Makeup Nani, was a personality in Kannada theatre, who also appeared in films, and worked as a make-up artist. His mother, Bhargavi Narayan, was a renowned film and theatre artiste. His siblings Sujata, Sudha and Pradeep, and nieces and nephews are also variously connected with theatre, music, television and cinema. He completed his elementary education at Mahila Seva Samaja, higher school education in National High School, following which he completed his pre-university course at National College, Bangaluru. He obtained a degree in mechanical engineering from University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering in 1983.

## Awards

* Prakash Belawadi's debut film Stumble, which he wrote and directed, won the National Award for Best Film in the English language, 2003.
* He was conferred ‘Pratibha Bhushan’ in 2003 by the Government of Karnataka for his contribution to culture.
* He was recipient of Karnataka Nataka Academy Award (2011–12) for his contribution to English and Kannada-language theatre. and
* He was awarded the ‘Pride of Karnataka’ by Bangalore Round Table (2015).
* He was the ‘Varshada Kannadiga’ (2015) in the field of entertainment, conferred by News 18 Kannada.
* He was given Helpmann Award, Australia (2019) for Best Actor, Male in the play 'Counting and Cracking', Belvoir St. Theatre, Sydney".

## International

Belawadi as mentioned earlier has participated in many seminars, conferences and festivals in India and abroad, including the Beyond Bollywood conference at the Gothenburg International Film Festival, 2010 the Performing Arts Market conference in Seoul, 2011 the 50th Theatertreffen – annual theatre festival meet at Berlin, 2013 and the seminar and exhibition, ‘Nature – A Good Idea’ at Trollhättan, Sweden in 2014. He has been faculty for film courses in Sweden and Istanbul, Turkey.

## Partial filmography
### Films

| Year | Film | Role | Language | Notes |
| 1973 | Abachurina Postofficu | | Kannada | Child actor |
| 1978 | Muyyi | | Kannada | Child actor |
| 1999 | Kanooru Heggadithi | Obe Gowda | Kannada | |
| 2001 | Mathadana | | Kannada | |
| 2013 | Madras Cafe | Bala | Hindi | |
| 2014 | Youngistaan | Murli Mukundan | Hindi | |
| 2015 | Benkipatna | Limba Rama | Kannada | |
| 2015 | Uttama Villain | Dr D. S. (Neurosurgeon) | Tamil | |
| 2015 | Aatagara | Dr. Chetan Bhagawat | Kannada | |
| 2015 | Fading Red | ACP Ravikumar | Kannada | Short film |
| 2015 | Kendasampige | DCP Suryakanth | Kannada | |
| 2015 | Talvar | Ramshankar Pillai | Hindi | |
| 2016 | Wazir | DCP | Hindi | |
| 2016 | Last Bus | Sandy | Kannada | |
| 2016 | Airlift | George Kutty | Hindi | |
| 2016 | Kiragoorina Gayyaligalu | A Government Officer | Kannada | |
| 2016 | Ishtakamya | Vikranth | Kannada | |
| 2016 | Te3n | Kumar | Hindi | |
| 2017 | Take Off | Rajan Menon | Malayalam | |
| 2017 | Aake | PK | Kannada | |
| 2017 | Meri Pyaari Bindu | Bindu's father | Hindi | |
| 2017 | Solo | Vishnu | Malayalam | Bilingual film |
| 2017 | Solo | Vishnu | Tamil | Bilingual film |
| 2017 | Dayavittu Gamanisi | | Kannada | |
| 2017 | Aval | Joshua | Tamil | Bilingual film |
| 2017 | The House Next Door | Joshua | Hindi | Bilingual film |
| 2017 | Mufti | Social worker | Kannada | |
| 2018 | Sanju | Kamal Kishore "KK" Arora | Hindi | |
| 2019 | The Accidental Prime Minister | M. K. Narayanan | Hindi | |
| 2019 | Thackeray | George Fernandes | Hindi | |
| 2019 | Natasaarvabhowma | Shruthi's uncle | Kannada | |
| 2019 | The Tashkent Files | GK Ananthasuresh | Hindi | |
| 2019 | Saaho | Shinde | Telugu | Bilingual film |
| 2019 | Saaho | Shinde | Hindi | Bilingual film |
| 2019 | Katha Sangama | Sathya Murthy | Kannada | |
| 2020 | Shakuntala Devi | Bishaw Mitra Mani | Hindi | |
| 2020 | Soorarai Pottru | Prakash Babu | Tamil | |
| 2020 | Yuvarathnaa | Shatrughan Salimath | Kannada | |
| 2021 | 100 | Sadanand | Kannada | |
| 2022 | One Cut Two Cut | Pruthiraj | Kannada | |
| 2022 | The Kashmir Files | Dr. Mahesh Kumar | Hindi | |
| 2022 | India Lockdown | M. Nageshwar Rao | Hindi | |
| 2022 | Hope | Vijayasimha | Kannada | |
| 2022 | Head Bush | | Kannada | |
| 2023 | Pathaan | Dr. Sahani | Hindi | |
| 2023 | Mysore Masala: The UFO Incident | Dr. Satyaprakash | Kannada | |
| 2023 | Pentagon | | Kannada | Anthology film; segment Kamaturam Na Bhayam Na Lajja |
| 2023 | Savitri | Dr. Jayaprakash | Kannada | |
| 2024 | O2 | Dr. Mrutyunjay | Kannada | |
| 2024 | The Judgement | | Kannada | |
| 2024 | Sarfira | | Hindi | |
| 2024 | My Hero | | Kannada | |
| 2024 | Baby John | DGP Yashraj Mukherjee | Hindi | |
| 2025 | Fateh | Aayappa | Hindi |
| 2025 | Thandel | | Telugu | |

### Television

| Year | Name | Role | Language | Network | Notes |
| 2018 | Smoke | Bhau | Hindi | Eros Now | |
| 2020 | High | Dr. Shridhar Roy | Hindi | MX Player | |
| 2021 | Mumbai Diaries 26/11 | Dr. Mani Subramaniam | Hindi | Amazon Prime Video | recurring role |
| 2022 | Humble Politician Nograj | Krishna Gundu Bala (KGB) | Kannada | Voot Select | Main cast |

### As writer and director

| Year | Title | Credited as | Credited as | Language | Notes | Ref. |
| Year | Title | Writer | Director | Language | Notes | Ref. |
| 2001 | Garva | Yes | Yes | Kannada | Television serial | |
| 2003 | Stumble | Yes | Yes | English | Included in Doordarshan's Best of Indian Cinema series | |
| 2023 | Mandala: The UFO Incident | Screenplay | No | Kannada | |

## Activism

Belawadi is one of the founding members of Citizens for Bengaluru, an active platform for people to engage with the city government to make it accountable to citizens. Belawadi curates ‘Rotary Avani’, an annual ecology festival in Bengaluru between 22 April, International Mother Earth Day and 5 June, World Environment Day, to create awareness about the environment, in The Five Elements – Earth, Water, Fire, Air and Sky, so that people, together with government, industry, business and citizens can participate in initiatives to improve urban ecological health.