Personal info
Known for
Cinematographer
Gender
Male
Birthday
Location
Andhra Pradesh, India
Edit pageRaj Thota
Biography
Raj Thota is an Indian Telugu-language film cinematographer. He received praise for the film Arjun Reddy.
Raj’s father Venkat Thota was a make-up artist with Mohan Babu and Raj used to accompany his father to the sets during holidays. It was during those visits Raj thought that the director, cinematographer, and lead actors were the only people, who were busy and running hither and thither. So, he decided to choose among these three crafts, and ultimately chose to be a cinematographer.
He expressed his desire to his father and joined his colleague, T. Surendra Reddy, a cinematographer, where he worked for different genres of films for several years, including Hindi films directed by Mani Shankar, in Hyderabad.
Later, he worked under DOP Mohana Krishna, as an assistant, in Hindi films, such as Ishqiya, R... Rajkumar, Do Lafzon Ki Kahani, and Force 2. He also worked in several commercials, as a second-unit cameraman. He later did a lot of ‘clash work’ for fellow cinematographer, Sai Sriram, for his films, when he was not available to shoot. These included Geethanjali, Ra Ra... Krishnayya, and Cinema Choopistha Mava.
He also did the same for Pellichoopulu.
In 2016, director Sandeep Vanga allowed him to debut as the cinematographer for Vijay Devarakonda's film Arjun Reddy, which was a huge runaway hit, the winner of the Best Actor in the 65th Filmfare Awards South and Santhosham Award, to the best debut cinematographer.
His later films were Needi Naadi Oke Katha in 2018 and Husharu in 2019. Raj was hired by director Puri Jagannadh to be the DOP for the action film, iSmart Shankar.
