Jayarajan Rajasekharan Nair, professionally credited as Jayaraj, is an Indian filmmaker, who predominantly works in Malayalam film industry. He has won many awards, including Crystal Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival, the Golden Peacock award at the IFFI, and the FIPRESCI Award from the International Federation of Film Critics. He is also a seven-time recipient of the National Film Award and several Kerala State Film Awards. His films include Paithrukam (1993), Desadanam (1996), 4 The People (2004), Vellapokkathil (2007), Ottaal (2015), and Bhayanakam (2018). He is the founder of the Birds Club International and is actively involved in philanthropic work. Early life During his stay at Thiruvananthapuram, he attended film festivals including the International Film Festival of Kerala and watched many world classics. Kurosawa's Rashomon and DeSica's Bicycle Thieves were among them, and they influenced him immensely. Career Bharathan was impressed by Jayaraj and made him his assistant director for Chilambu(1986). Jayaraj then went on to be the assistant to Bharathan in six more films including the critically acclaimed Oru Minnaminunginte Nurunguvettam (1987) and Vaishali (1988). Jayaraj debuted as director with Vidyarambham (1990). His early career mainly produced commercially oriented films like Aakasha Kottayile Sultan (1991), Johnnie Walker (1992), High Way (1995), Thumboli Kadappuram (1995) and Arabia (1995). Notable in his early career were Kudumbasametham (1992), Paithrukam (1993) and Sopanam (1993). Desadanam (1997) was followed by Kaliyattam (1997) which was an adaptation of Shakespeare's Othello. It won him the National Film Award for Best Direction. In 1999 Jayaraj started his nine-film series project Navarasa with Karunam, followed by Shantham (2001). Shantham won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film. The third in the Navarasa series was Bheebhatsa, a Hindi film followed by Adbutham and Veeram. In 2018, the sixth film in the series Bhayanakam was released and had won awards for Best Direction, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Cinematography at the 2017 National Film Awards. On 10 June 2019, Tovino Thomas officially announced and shared the poster of Roudram 2018, the seventh film in the series. While sharing the poster on Facebook Tovino wrote, "The movie is based on real-life incidents that occurred in central Travancore, during the devastating floods that Kerala survived. Roudram 2018 portrays the tempestuous ferocity of nature, and the utter helplessness of humankind before that might." Of late he has been doing commercial and art films and is successful in both genres. While Thilakkam