Festivals
Durga Puja
Associations
Learn Bangla
Beng. Marriage
Art & Craft
Great Indians
Beauty Care
Recipe
Astrology
Beng. Section
Bengal
Calcutta
Beng. Calendar
Wallpapers
Movie
Music
E-Card
Shopping
E-Puja Room 
News
E-mail
Month's Events
Weather 
Chat
Education
Join Us
Advertise
Website links
Link to us
Guest Corner
Services
WebSite Design

Contemporary Indian filmmaker Shyam Benegal has been an important figure in the new wave of Indian directors. Benegal originated what has come to be called "middle cinema". He was initially involved in the advertising industry and produced over 900 advertisements before his interest turned to films.

Shyam Benegal was born on 14 December 1934 at Aliwal, Hyderabad, British India (now Andhra Pradesh, India). The son of a still photographer and one of 10 children, Benegal's love affair with motion pictures began when he made his first home-movie using a hand-cranked camera at age 12. He was nephew of the famous Indian Actor Director Guru Dutt.
As a young man, he went on to found a film society and get involved in acting while studying at Osmania University where he earned an MA in economics. After graduating, Benegal had been promised a lucrative job in Bombay. He arrived to the city with only a few rupees in his pocket to discover the job didn't exist. He eventually found a job as a copywriter at a large ad agency. Soon he was promoted to writing scripts and directing advertising shorts and commercials. He remained there for over a decade.
In 1969 he received a special fellowship to study operations of the Children's Television Workshop in New York. Later he did a brief stint as a TV producer in Boston.
Since then he has become a popular director in India, noted for creating films sensitive to the role of women in Indian societies. His films are also gaining international recognition and acclaim.

His film directorial debut was Gher Betha Ganga in 1962. Benegal shot to fame with Ankur 1973, which introduced Shabana Azmi, who also starred in Nishant 1975. Benegal did not direct his first feature film, The Seedling (1974), until he was 40. The success that New India Cinema enjoyed in the 1970s and early 1980s could largely be attributed to Shyam Benegal's quartet Ankur (1973), Nishant (1975), Manthan (1976) and Bhumika (1977), which were artistically superior yet commercially viable films. Tapping fresh talent mainly from the FTII and NSD, Benegal has made several sensitive and stimulating films.

Founder of the Hyderabad Film Society and a former Ad Filmmaker, Ankur, his first feature film, is set in rural South India where Surya, a zamindar's son arrives from the city to oversee his father's estate.

The film is memorable for its engrossing details of rural life and its exposure of the feudal system that is brutal and indifferent and is helped by a powerful film debut by Shabana Azmi as the maidservant. Ankur not only won several awards including the National Award for Shabana but also had a good showing at the Box Office.

With Nishant, where a teacher's wife is abducted and gang-raped by four zamindars and officialdom turns a deaf ear to the distraught husband's pleas for help and Manthan, set against the backdrop of Gujarat's fledgling dairy industry, Benegal continued to address the viewer in a strict cinematic language bereft of commercial skills.

Bhumika looks at an individual's search for identity and self-fulfillment. The film is broadly based on the life of well-known Marathi Stage and screen actresses of the 1940s, Hansa Wadkar who led a flamboyant and unconventional life.

Unlike most New Cinema Filmmakers Benegal has had private backers for many of his films. Following the success of these four films, he was backed by film star Shashi Kapoor for whom he made Junoon (1979) and Kalyug (1981).

The former set in the turbulent period of the Indian Mutiny of 1857 is one of Benegal's most stylish films and one which

is meticulously detailed and visually arresting and one that gave him much satisfaction but Kalyug, a complex narrative based on the Mahabharat in spite of some great moments doesn't quite come off.

In the 1980s however with the collapse of the New Cinema, Benegal's films have not had proper releases except a few like Mandi (1983). The 1980s also saw him turn to TV where he directed serials like Yatra (1986) for the Indian Railways, and of course one of the biggest projects undertaken on Indian Television, Bharat ek Khoj (1988) a serial based on Nehru's Discovery of India.

His later films are Suraj ka Satwa Ghora, Mammo (1994), Sardari Begum (1996) , The Making of the Mahatma (1996) – on Gandhiji’s life, Zubeida (2001) and a tribute to Netaji Subhas Bose the Indian Freedom Fighter Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: The Forgotten Hero (2005), which rose much controversy. Besides this he has directed a numerous documentaries for Television and film.

He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1976 and the Padma Bhushan in 1991.