Bharat Bala
Bharat Bala, born Ganapathy Bharat in Chennai, is an Indian film director, screenwriter and producer who works in Chennai and Mumbai. He first gained national attention with patriotic music videos Vande Mataram (1997) and Jana Gana Mana (2000), created with A. R. Rahman. He was set to direct an Indo-Japanese film called The 19th Step, co-produced by Disney and written by Kamal Haasan, but the project was shelved. He later directed Hari Om (2004) and Maryan (2013). In 2010 he directed the official Commonwealth Games song Jiyo Utho Bado Jeeto and the games’ opening ceremony.
In 2019 he launched Virtual Bharat, a 1,000-film digital museum documenting India’s art, culture and landscapes. During the COVID-19 lockdown, he directed We Will Rise (2020), a four-minute short shot remotely across 14 Indian states. At the 55th International Film Festival of India in November 2024, he spoke on a panel about using culture as context for cinematic storytelling, highlighting Virtual Bharat’s crowd-funded model. Bala’s next feature, Mahasangam—set around the 2025 Maha Kumbh in Prayagraj and scored by A. R. Rahman—entered post-production in early 2025.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 07:23 (CET).