Venkat Bharadwaj

Venkat Bharadwaj worked a regional manager of Starcom when an incident that happened on Church Street, Bangalore motivated him to make the indie film titled A Day in the City. Scriptwriting with him and his friends began in August 2013. Filming began on 8 January 2014 and finished on 13 May 2014. Since the film was shot on the weekends, ninety-percent of the cast was IT professional apart from Kappanna and Malayalam actor Sridharan.^[2] The film was shot for twelve hours a day and the actors were mailed their lines beforehand. The four songs were shot at Brigade Road and M G Road in Bangalore, Maddur, Mahadevapura, Mandya and Srirangapatna.^[3] The film is about water scarcity in a big city and how important government officials and engineers try to solve the issue.^[4][5] The film was screened at British Airways, China Air and Emirates amongst other airlines.^[5] His next film was the historical drama Bablusha (2016), for which he selected 3 candidates from 480 people who auditioned for the three lead roles.^[6] His next film Kempiruve delved into the lives of senior citizens and the challenges they face.^[7] His 2019 documentary Leap of Faith is based on suicidal people who decided to not take their lives and also covered attempted suicides by children.^[8] His film Omelette (2021) was based on an auto driver's aspirations in life. The film's story was conceived in September 2019 and the film's post-production work was wrapped by January 2020.^[9] The film did not have a theatrical release and opted for a direct television release due to the COVID-19 pandemic.^[10] The film Naguvina Hoogala Mele (2024) marked his foray into the romantic action genre.^[11][12] His last release was the patriotic film Hyena (2025).^[13]

He is the elder son of Kannada film industry veteran C. V. Shivashankar.^[14] His brother Karthik Urs worked as an actor in A Day in the City and Kempiruve (2017), the latter of which he also co-wrote the story and dialogues.^[15]