Ashok Amritraj’s life is a kaleidoscope of vibrantly coloured events.
He has gone from representing India at Wimbledon in 1974 as a 17-year-old, to being on the winning team of the World Team Tennis Championship in 1978, and then quitting the sport to follow his love for films. The youngest of the Amritraj brothers has carved a place for himself in Hollywood as a producer of repute.
Shake the kaleidoscope a little and it reveals his tenure as a member on the Foreign Film Board of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as well as a member of the International Council for Emmy Awards.
Adding new colour to Amritraj’s multi-faceted life is his appointment as United Nations in India Goodwill Ambassador for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
At the ceremony held in Delhi on January 28, Amritraj accepted the honour and said: “I look forward to working with the United Nations in India to amplify awareness about the SDGs.”
Amritraj, who grew up in Chennai, continued: “It is a tremendous opportunity that brings together my personal desire to serve the country of my birth, and my passion for leveraging the power of the media for the creation of diverse, socially-relevant content.”
Welcoming Amritraj to the UN Family, Yuri Afanasiev, UN Resident Coordinator said: “We look forward to working with Mr Amritraj as a powerful advocate for the SDGs, and to his support in showcasing innovations and cutting-edge solutions to development challenges that are being generated in India.”
This is not Amritraj’s first association with the UN.
In 2014, he produced and hosted the acclaimed series, Chance of a Lifetime, in partnership with the UNHQ in which young filmmakers from Asia competed to create original, short stories highlighting issues related to water, HIV/Aids, gender equality, migration, and education.
In an exclusive chat with Gulf News tabloid! at his Chennai home, Amritraj recalled working with the UN since 2012.
“Robert Orr, UN Deputy Secretary-General, and I were introduced at a function and it sparked our discussion on how media could benefit the UN’s millennium development goals [now called the SDGs] and how to spread awareness in the best possible way,” he said.
“I came up with the idea for the television series, Chance of a Lifetime, in 2014. We selected two young men and two young women, each from UAE, Singapore and India, who were brought to Chennai to make a one-minute film on the millennium goals,” said Amritraj.
In the second round, the contestants had to make a five-minute documentary and for the finals, a ten-minute film.
The winners were taken to Cannes 2015 and then to the UN office in New York where their film was screened for all the ambassadors. Chance of a Lifetime was also telecast on Doordarshan and National Geographic Channel.
Partnering with Amritraj on this project was Image Nation, a leading media and entertainment company based in Abu Dhabi.
Calling UAE a safe place and one of his favourite spots, Amritraj also talked about his company, Hyde Park Entertainment, and its eight-year partnership with Image Nation.
“We have done about 11 movies together including Ghost Rider, 99 Homes and Careful What You Wish For.
“In fact, two of our actors, Andrew Garfield and Michael Shannon [of 99 Homes] were recently nominated for Golden Globe and Academy awards,” added this father of two.
“I am excited about our next film Prey, which is now in post-production,” he said.
Prey, a thriller scripted by David Coggeshall and directed by Franck Khalfoun, features Logan Miller and Kristine Froseth in the lead.
Amritraj’s love affair with movies goes back to the long hours spent as a seven-year-old at the now demolished Safire theater complex in Chennai, his second home, as he put it.
Watching classics including The Sound of Music, the little Amritraj was mesmerised by Hollywood.
Years later when he first arrived in California in 1975, Amritraj took no time in dumping his bags in his room and hailing a cab, which he took around to the studios of Warner Bros, Columbia Pictures and Walt Disney Studios.
But not everyone’s dream crystallises into a reality.
Amritraj’s life turned kaleidoscopic in the years to follow. Little did he know that he would be engaging soon with his childhood heroes such as Sidney Poitier, Dustin Hoffman, Michael Douglas, Arnold Schwarzenegger and others, whom he had admired on screen.
His jaw dropping moment came when he sat along with director Robert Wise (of The Sound of Music) as a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures in 1992.
“When I told him that I had watched his film 34 times, Bob Wise remarked: “So that’s where all the box office in India came from.”
Another exhilarating moment was meeting Charlton Heston, the star of Ben Hur (another of Amritraj’s favourite films) in 1992.
“Films were always something I wanted to do, it was only a question of when,” he said.
The transition from tennis to films was not easy, though.
“In the eighties, America was a white world, and not the global village of today. Hollywood was very insular. Americans knew little about India then. It was a closed world,” he said.
In 1992, Amritraj made his first film, Double Impact, with Jean-Claude Van Damme. Over the next thirty years, Amritraj produced more than 100 films.
“There have been ups and downs but it’s been a pretty magical run since 1990. No complaints. From Wimbledon to getting to do the things in Hollywood and this [UN post] is the crowning moment,” he said.
Over the next few months, Amritraj will be working in association with the heads of 20 UN Agencies in India and he hopes to make a difference in some way to creating initiatives to spread the word.
“I have my hands full now,” he said.
In September 2015, at the UN General Assembly, 193 countries adopted arguably the most ambitious global agenda of our times, The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development — a plan of action for people, planet, prosperity, and peace. India played an important role in shaping the global agenda and is critical to its success.
Communications and advocacy which engage governments, organizations and rights holders in a constructive dialogue to advance the SDGs is important.
UN Goodwill Ambassadors aim to generate momentum and commitment to achieve the SDGs by 2030 and to foster engagement of new stakeholders in the implementation of these Goals.
So does Amritraj get time to play tennis sometimes?
“Yes, of late I am able to do that once a week,” he said.
