From Mumbai garage to 8 Oscars: Namit Malhotra’s DNEG journey

Mumbai: In 1995, 18-year-old Namit Malhotra mortgaged his family’s house to start a VFX studio in his father’s garage with one computer. 30 years later, that company has become DNEG, a global visual effects powerhouse with 8 Academy Awards for films like Dune, Interstellar, Blade Runner 2049 and Tenet.

Starting as Prime Focus in 1997, the studio trained fresh talent in India and expanded to London, LA, and Vancouver. A 2014 merger with UK’s Double Negative turned it into DNEG. Today, thousands of artists — many based in India — work on Hollywood’s biggest films.

Malhotra, from a Bollywood filmmaking family, is now bringing that expertise home with DNEG’s VFX work on a large-scale Ramayana film.

From one computer to building the worlds of Arrakis and Pandora, his bet on Indian talent has paid off.