Ganapathi Venkataramana Iyer was an Indian film director and actor. He was nicknamed "Kannada Bheeshma". His film Adi Shankaracharya (1983) won four National Film Award, including Best Film, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography and Best Audiography. His film Swami Vivekananda (1998) was nominated in the Best Film category at the Bogotá Film Festival, for which Mithun Chakraborty won the national award for Best Supporting Actor.

Swami Vivekananda is a 1998 Indian biographical film directed by G. V. Iyer and produced by T. Subbarami Reddy. It took Iyer 11 years to finish the research work required for the film and to write the screenplay.