Puja Kolluru

Puja Kolluru is a filmmaker from the Telugu film industry. She has garnered attention for her directorial debut, Martin Luther King a 2023 Indian Telugu-language political satire film, a remake of Mandela.

Early life
Puja grew up in Vijayawada and after Class X, wanted to become a physicist. She enrolled in an International Baccalaureate programme at UWC Mahindra College. Along with physics she studied films as well for 2 years, before pursuing her passion for filmmaking by earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, majoring in Film with a specialization in Screenwriting and Directing, from Ringling College of Art and Design in Florida, USA.

Career
Puja Kolluru's directorial journey began with her thesis film, Reflection, which earned her accolades, winning both Best Film and Best Director Awards at the Ringling film festival.

She shot her first feature documentary, A Woman Who Climbs Trees, centered around the life of Dr. Meg Lowman, a renowned National Geographic Scientist in the Amazon rainforests in Peru as a one-woman production team. The documentary received the Special Jury Award at the Dada Saheb Phalke Film Festival in 2020. The documentary was also officially selected at the Sarasota Film Festival, USA.

Puja is actively involved in the academics, mentoring and teaching as a Guest Faculty in Screenwriting and Production at Annapurna College of Film and Media. She is also a Co-Founder of Write Right Club, contributing to the literary and creative landscape. Moreover, Puja has served as a Visiting Professor at Annapurna College of Film and Media and as a Documentary Filmmaker at TREE Foundation.

In addition to her work as a director, Kolluru has proven her skills in screenwriting, contributing to the screenplay and dialogue of the Telugu adaptation of the Tamil film Mandela (2021), titled Martin Luther King (2023). The film was later released on SonyLIV on November 29, 2023.