Ani I. V. Sasi

Ani is the son of Malayalam filmmaker I. V. Sasi and actress Seema. Growing up, anime, Tamil films (including Crazy Mohan and Suresh Krissna's works) and Malayalam films influenced his way of thinking.^[1][2][3] Ani studied in Chennai and worked on his father's Vellathooval (2009) as part of his college practical.^[4] He worked as an associate director under Priyadarshan for ten Malayalam and Hindi films starting with Aakrosh (2010) and later for Oppam (2016).^[5]

His made his debut as a director for the Tamil short film Maya (2017), from which the story about the insomniac chef inspired his feature film debut Ninnila Ninnila (2021).^[6][3] Although Ani initially wanted to make the film in Malayalam, the film was made in Telugu as producer B. V. S. N. Prasad took a liking to the film's script as opposed to a commercial film script that Ani had developed.^[1] Ani credits anime and Steven Spielberg as inspirations to get into filmmaking.^[2] He worked as a co-writer for Priyadarshan's Marakkar: Lion of the Arabian Sea (2021).^[3] Ani collaborated with writer Vasanth Maringanti, who sent him four scripts out of which he chose the village drama Uppu Kappurambu to develop as a feature film. The film has been inspired by the works of Jandhyala and his erstwhile mentor Priyadarshan.^[2][7]