Amitoj Mann

Amitoj Mann or commonly known as Amtoje Mann, is a Punjabi actor, director and screenwriter. He is the son of Babu Singh Mann, a poet and lyricist in Punjab who has also managed to produce a number of Punjabi films. He has also won a number of awards including five-lifetime achievement awards to his name.

Amitoj Mann started out as an amateur play artist with Naddir Babbar's theater group called "EKJUT", and it is here that he gained experience from performing plays and helped him transform into an actor and simultaneously realize his talent for writing and direction. Amitoj was selected to play the hero for Dilip Kumar's debut film "Kalinga" alongside Meenakshi Sheshadri, but the movie was never made due to unknown reasons. He then turned on to concentrate on "making" movies rather than acting in it.

In his initial years as director, he directed more than twenty music video albums and also managed to win awards for them. He self-directed and wrote the script for his first movie "Hawayein" which realistically centers around the incidents following the aftermath of the Indira Gandhi Assassination in 1984. The film was critically acclaimed nationwide and did surprisingly well at international level too, breaking box office records in Canada for the first time.

His realistic approach to movies continued with the release of his second film "Kaffila", a film based around the issues surrounding illegal immigration which affects millions of Indians and Asians alike. The movie lays focus on how intensely Indians crave to leave their homeland for developed nations in the hope of finding a near-perfect life. The fact that Amitoj writes and directs his own works gives him full freedom of creative expression.