Shyam Benegal
Shyam Benegal (born 14 December 1934 in Aliwal, Hyderabad ) is an Indian film director. He is one of India's leading auteurs and stands despite his strong personal style both in the tradition of commercial entertainment film of the Bollywood film industry and that of the artistically ambitious Hindi film.
Life and work
His directorial debut was Shyam Benegal Gher Betha Ganga in 1962, but only gained great fame with the films Ankur (1974 ), Nishant (1975 ) Manthan and (1976 ), all. With actress Shabana Azmi in the lead role In them he deals with the feudal Indian society in his native Andhra Pradesh and in particular the role of women. This first phase of his work belongs to the movement of the "New Indian film ", which brought realism to the canvas. Characters such as corrupt officials and politicians, exploitative landowners and simple villagers and women from the lowest social classes return to Benegals early films regularly again. Shyam Benegal turned with Smita Patil, Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Shashi Kapoor, Kulbhushan Kharbanda and Karisma Kapoor, the first squad of Indian actor.
From the 1980s, Benegal turned to more historical themes and filmed in 1988 under the title Bharat ek Khoj Jawaharlal Nehru's demolition of Indian history The Discovery of India in a 53teiligen television series. He also shot documentaries about Satyajit Ray (1984 ), Nehru (1983) and about the early years of Gandhi in South Africa (The Making of the Mahatma, 1996).
He owns his own production company in Mumbai. For his film adaptation of a part of the Biography of Subhash Chandra Bose Benegal also filmed in Germany with Udo Schenk as Adolf Hitler.
Awards
The Government of India awarded him the Padma Shri in 1976 and Padma Bhushan in 1991. For several of his films Benegal received national film awards for Junoon 1979 he received the Filmfare Award for Best Director. In 2007 he was awarded the Dadasaheb Phalke Award for the year 2005.