RAHOUL DASWANI
FILMMAKER | VOICE ARTIST | CONTENT CREATOR
EARLY LIFE
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Rahoul was born on 29th November 1986 in Mumbai, India. His father runs a herbal pest control business and mother is a former television director and professor at both Xavier's Institute of Communications and Sophia Polytechnic, Mumbai. Cinema was his closest companion since childhood. He grew up in South Mumbai home to several single-screen movie theaters and spent most of his time in the dark watching movies.
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As a child, Rahoul faced difficulty in coping with urban mainstream primary education. In 1998, he was enrolled at an experimental boarding school, Redstone Farm in Panchgani, a hill station about five hours from Mumbai. Here he was exposed to alternative methods of learning: a connect with nature, organic farming, orientation to computers, besides harnessing formal education skills. Introduction to new upcoming technology, audiovisual, and world cinema were part of this new learning. Very soon he was shooting school events with a camcorder.
Rahoul with Aamir Khan during
filming PK in New Delhi 2014.
On his return to Mumbai, Rahoul took admission in the Arts stream at Jai Hind College. Being creatively inclined he spent lot of time doing stage and other performing arts. At age 17, he took up a part time job worked as an assistant on corporate films. During his final year at college, he directed, edited and shot his first documentary, Escape To Victory - The Making of Malhar (2006), highlighting the journey of his fellow students, leading to winning the most prestigious inter-collegiate festival trophy in Mumbai, the Malhar trophy of 2006.
CAREER
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Upon graduating in 2007, Rahoul began his journey without a film school degree, in Mumbai’s thriving film industry. He worked as a freelance assistant on commercials and took up a part time job in an editing studio, cutting game shows for Television.
Rahoul with Rajkumar Hirani during
PK behind the scenes interview in 2014.
In 2010, Rahoul made his first short film, The Four Wheeler, which was selected at the Syracuse International Film Festival in NY, USA, followed by, The Up & Coming Hannover Film Festival, Germany. The same year, he was engaged as creative director & editor of a documentary, The Inheritance of Light, based on the life and works of the renowned painter, Jehangir Sabavala.
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In 2011, Rahoul joined Vinod Chopra Films as a director-editor & cameraman for the behind-the-scenes of filmmaker Rajesh Mapuskar's Ferrari Ki Sawaari (2011) and Rajkumar Hirani's PK (2014), Starring Aamir Khan, Anushka Sharma, Sanjay Dutt, Sushant Singh Rajput, and Boman Irani.
But the tides turned when he came in contact with India Take One Productions, producers of International projects in India. He gained invaluable experience in various aspects of film production on projects: Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011), Life of Pi (2012), The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2015), LION (2016), Silicon Valley (2016), Viceroy’s House (2017), Hotel Mumbai (2018) and Love Sonia (2018) the directorial debut of Tabrez Noorani (proprietor: India Take One Productions and line producer: Slumdog Millionaire).
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In late 2016, Rahoul toured alongside the little star Sunny Pawar, as a mentor and interpreter on the press tour of LION (2016). This included several Q & A’s and Television interviews in New York and Los Angeles. A huge privilege came in the form of an invitation to the Lucas Valley-Marinwood (San Francisco) for a special screening and interactive seesion with the team of ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) and Skywalker Sound.
President Obama with Sunny Pawar and
Rahoul Daswani at The White House in
Washington DC in Jan 2017.
To top it up, Rahoul accompanied Sunny Pawar and his father Dilip Pawar on a special invitation to visit The White House in Washington DC, on January 16th 2017. It was an honor to meet President Obama, just three days before the end of his term.
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In 2019, Rahoul released his second short film To Remember Me By (2019), which did around on several international film festivals in the US, Europe, and Asia. It won the Shoe String Trophy and Best of Fest Awards at the 61st Rochester International Film Festival, New York 2019.
Lion Q & A in Los Angeles with Luke Davies, Garth Davis, Dev Patel,
Rooney Mara, Nicole Kidman, Sunny Pawar and Rahoul Daswani in Dec 2016.
In 2020, when the Covid Pandemic hit, Rahoul used his free time to resurrect another passion of his, voice acting. Completely self trained again, he started creating content videos on instagram. Within three years, he has professionally voiced for brands such as Acko, Airtel, Ambuja Cement, Anchor by Panasonic, Betway, Camel, Del Monte, Eveready, Goel Tmt, IDFC First Bank, HDFC Payzapp, Hathi Prime Cement, Infosys, JK Tyre, 1finance, Knorr, Lava, Lenskart, Mahindra Rise, Prime Video, Rasna, Red Bull, Sleep Well, Xiaomi, Xyxx and Zomato.
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His voice has also been featured for sports tournaments on Jio Cinema and Sports 18, including the Fifa World Cup 2022, Indian Super League 2023-24, Laliga 2023-24, NBA 2023-24, Tata IPL 2023 and many more.
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Fueled by his passion for cinema, performing arts, and largely self-taught, Rahoul is now directing Commercials, doing Voice Overs, creating Content Videos for many brands, and production companies. In the pipeline, a feature-length screenplay is on the anvil.
Rahoul in a recording session in Dec 2023.