Namit Malhotra is the chairman and CEO of DNEG, the VFX company behind two Oscar-nominated films, ‘No Time to Die‘ and ‘Dune‘. At the 94th Academy Awards, 2022, ‘Dune’ took home the award for the Best Visual Effects. 

Speaking to News18, Malhotra said “It’s a great feeling. It’s the first James Bond movie to get a nomination in this particular category in many, many years. Dune, on the other hand, is the new benchmark of visual effects in storytelling”. 

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Malhotra comes from a third-generation filmmaking family. Bollywood movie producer Naresh Malhotra is his father, while cinematographer M.N. Malhotra is Namit’s grandfather. 

Start of an idea 

Malhotra graduated from the H.R. College of Commerce and Economics in Mumbai but it was only after he joined a computer graphics school in 1995 that he realized how entire movies could be made on the device. Malhotra then recruited three teachers from the school to be his co-founders when he began Video Workshop, an editing studio operating out of his father’s garage. 

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In 1997, Malhotra merged the business Video Workshop with Video Works, a business renting film equipment, to create Prime Focus. This became the first company in India operating a Motion Controlled Rig (2004). 

The DNEG connect 

In October 2011, Malhotra merged Prime Focus with DNEG, the then-British VFX company behind Christopher Nolan’s ‘Inception’, which won an Oscar for best visual effects in 2011. 

Since the Malhotra-led merger, DNEG has won five more Oscars in the same category. They’ve been for ‘Interstellar’ (2015), ‘Ex Machina’ (2016), ‘Blade Runner 2049‘ (2018), ‘First Man’ (2019) and ‘Tenet‘ (2021).

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This merger also saw Malhotra become the CEO and chairperson of the company.

Like father like son 

Apart from Malhotra’s interest in visual effects, he’s also produced movies. These include ‘The Hurricane Heist’, ‘Horizon Line’, and the star-studded Bollywood film ‘Brahmastra‘.