Nelson Dilipkumar

Biography

predominantly works in Tamil cinema. His films are action thrillers and are known for featuring elements of dark humor.

Nelson won the Best Screenplay Award in Norway Tamil Film Festival for his directorial debut Kolamaavu Kokila. He was listed among the Promising Directors of 2018 in the Times of India article.

Nelson holds a degree in visual communication from New College, Chennai. He started his career as an assistant scriptwriter at Star Vijay.

Nelson started his work on what was originally intended to have been his directorial debut, Vettai Mannan, in 2010. The film would have starred Silambarasan, Jai, Hansika Motwani, and Deeksha Seth; would have been produced by NIC Arts's S. S. Chakravarthy; and would have featured music by Yuvan Shankar Raja. However, the film was shelved for unknown reasons halfway through production. There was an attempt to revive the project in 2017 with a new crew, such as Anirudh Ravichander replacing Yuvan Shankar Raja as the composer. However, the project failed to take off again.

Composer Anirudh Ravichander helped Nelson make his actual debut feature film as writer-director, the dark comedy Kolamaavu Kokila, starring Nayanthara in the lead role. The film, produced by Lyca Productions, was released on 17 August 2018 and became a commercial success.

His next film was Doctor, starring Sivakarthikeyan in the lead role opposite Priyanka Arul Mohan. The film became one of the biggest Tamil-language blockbusters among films that were released theatrically after the pandemic-induced lockdowns.

In November 2020, Anirudh introduced Nelson to actor Vijay, who was impressed with Nelson's script for Beast. The film, an action-comedy thriller and Vijay's 65th film, also starring Pooja Hegde, was released on 13 April 2022 as a pan-Indian film dubbed in the Telugu, Hindi, Kannada and Malayalam languages. Despite getting mixed reviews from critics, Beast collected ₹240 crore at the worldwide box office.

Nelson's next project is for Rajinikanth’s 169th film which is tentatively titled Thalaivar 169. On 17 June 2022, the title was announced to be Jailer. Rajinikanth will be playing the role of an experienced jailer in this film. The film will be released on 10 August 2023.

2023.