Shyam Benegal

Infobox actor
bgcolour = silver
name = Shyam Benegal
శ్యాం బెనెగల్‌


imagesize = 200px
birthdate = birth date and age|1934|12|14
location = Trimulgherry, Secunderabad
occupation = Film director, Screenwriter
awards=Padma Shri 1976
Padma Bhushan1991
Best Director: " Junoon " (1978)

Shyam Benegal ( శ్యాం బెనెగల్‌ ) (born 14 December, 1934,in Andhra pradesh ) is a prolific Indian director and screenwriter. With his first four feature films Ankur (1973), Nishant (1975) Manthan (1976) and Bhumika (1977) he created a new genre, which has now come to be called the "middle cinema" in India. [ [http://www.filmsofdesire.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20&Itemid=38 Indian directors at filmofdesire] ]

He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1976 and the Padma Bhushan in 1991. On 8th August 2007, he was awarded the highest award in Indian cinema for lifetime achievement, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award for the year 2005. He has won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi seven times.

Biography

Early life and education

Shyam Benegal, born 14 December, 1934 in Trimulgherry , Secunderabad, then a British Cantonment, and now a twin city of state capital, Hyderabad. It was here, at age twelve that he made his first film, on a camera gifted by his photographer father. He did his M.A. in Economics, from Nizam College, Osmania University, Hyderabad . It was here that formed the 'Hyderabad Film Society'.

Family

Benegal is related to the famous film director and actor Guru Dutt, his paternal grandmother and Guru Dutt's maternal grandmother were sisters, both nominally Konkani speaking Chitrapur Saraswats.

Early career

He started his career working in 1959, as an Advertising copywriter, at Bombay based advertising agency, 'Lintas Advertising', where he steadily rose to become a creative head. Meanwhile, he made his first documentary in Gujarati, "Gher Betha Ganga" (Ganges at Doorsteps) in 1962. His first feature film though, had to wait another decade, while its script for Ankur was ready with him. [ [http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/Culture/Cinema/Benegal.html Shyam Benegal at ucla.net] "South Asia Studies", "University of California, Los Angeles".] .

In 1963 he started his brief stint with another advertising agency called ASP (Advertising, Sales and Promotion) [ [http://www.indianetzone.com/2/film_directors.htm Film directors at indiazone] ] . During his advertising years, he directed over 900 sponsored documentaries and advertising films.

Between 1966 and 1973, Shyam also taught at Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune, and later remained its Chairman twice, (1980-83) and (1989-92). By this times he already started making documentaries, what was to remain his career-long passion, one of his early documentaries "A Child of the Streets" (1967) got him wide acclaim [ [http://i-ac.org/pdfdoc/spring2002.pdf Indo American Centre, Shyam Benegal Retrospective, 2002] ] , in all he has made over 70 documentary and short films [ [http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/fr/2003/01/17/stories/2003011700990100.htm "Shyam Benegal" Retrospective London's National Film Theatre, 2002] "The Hindu", Jan 17, 2003.] .

Soon, he was awarded the Homi Bhabha Fellowship (1970-72) [http://mumbai.mtnl.net.in/~hbfc/cv/MR_SHYAM_BENEGAL.html "Homi Bhabha Fellowship Council", Fellows, Biodata] ."Homi Bhabha Fellowship ", "During the period of his Fellowship, Mr. Benegal wrote and directed short films on social themes with special relevance to the lower-income groups of the middle and working classes. He also visited the USA, the UK and Japan to study educational television films."] , which allowed him to work at Children Television Workshop, New York, and later at Boston WGBHTV.

Feature films

Coming back to Bombay, he received independent financing for his film and "Ankur" (The Seedling) was finally made in 1973, a story of economic and sexual exploitation from his home state, Andhra Pradesh, and Benegal instantly shot to fame. The film also introduced actors, Shabana Azmi and Anant Nag and won Shyam Benegal, the 1975 National Film Award for Second Best Feature Film and Shabana Azmi won the National Film Award for Best Actress.

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 like Shabana Azmi, Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Kulbhushan Kharbanda and Amrish Puri, Benegal has made several sensitive and stimulating films.

With Nishant (Night's End) (1975), 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. With, Manthan (The Churning) (1976), a film on rural empowerment, 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. For the first time, over five lakh rural farmers in Gujarat, contributed Rs 2 each, and thus became film's producers. Upon its release, truckloads of farmers came to see 'their film', making it a success at the box office. [ [http://www.ndtvmovies.com/newstory.asp?section=Movies&id=ENTEN20070021927 NDTV movies] "NDTV".] After this trilogy on rural oppression, ending with an empowering finale of Mathan (1976), he made a biopic, Bhumika (The Role) (1977), broadly based on the life of well-known Marathi stage and film actress of the 1940s, Hansa Wadkar (played by Smita Patil), who led a flamboyant and unconventional life, and later sets out on at an individual search for identity and self-fulfillment, at same time grappling with exploitation by men. [ [http://www.laweekly.com/film+tv/film/in-search-of-shyam-benegal/17126/ LA Weekly, August 29, 2007] ] .

Meanwhile in the early 70's Shyam made 21 film modules for Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE), sponsored by UNICEF. This allowed him to interact with children of SITE and many folk artists, eventually he used many of these children, in his rendition of the classic folk tale, as a feature length children's film, Charandas Chor (Charandas the Thief) in 1975, which he made for the Children Films Society of India. [ [http://www.filmreference.com/Directors-Be-Bu/Benegal-Shyam.html Shyam Benegal biography at filmreference] ] To quote film critic, Derek Malcolm:

"…What Benegal has done is to paint a magnificent visual recreation of those extraordinary days and one that is also sensitive to the agonies and predicament of a talented woman whose need for security was only matched by her insistence on freedom" [ [http://www.upperstall.com/people/shyambenegal.html Shyam Benegal at upperstall] "Upperstall.com".] .

The 80s

Unlike most New Cinema filmmakers, Benegal has had private backers for many of his films, and institutional backing for a few, including Manthan (National Diary Development Board), Susman (1987)(Handloom Co-operatives) and Yatra (1996) (Indian Railways) [http://www.rediff.com/entertai/1999/jul/28shy.htm Shyam Benegal at rediff.com 1999] "Rediff.com", July 28, 1999.] . This gave him an added advantage, as he managed to survive the collapse of the New Cinema movement in the late 80s due paucity of funding, with which were lost many neo-realist and promising filmmakers, yet Shyam Benegal, stood out as an exception and continued making films, right through the next two decades. He also remained the Director of the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC), 1980 to 1986 .

Following the success of these four films, he was backed by film star Shashi Kapoor for whom he made Junoon (1978) and Kalyug (1981). The former, an inter-racial love story, set amidst 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 was not a big hit. Though, both the films won the Filmfare Best Movie Award, in 1980 and 1982 respectively.

Deeply interest in life and several domains of human enquiry, Shyam Benegal's sensibilities gets reflect in his cinema which in turn have been inspired by the different facets of India. And he never wavered from his commitment to his vision, of making socially relevant as well as uplifting films. A promise that was kept well, with his next film, Mandi (1983) was a satirical comedy about politics and prostitution, starring Shabana Azmi and Smita Patil. Later, working from his own story, based on the last days of Portuguese in Goa, in the early 1960s, Shyam explored human relationship and its quagmires in Trikaal (1985).

In the 1980s however with the collapse of the New Cinema, Benegal's films have not had proper releases and 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, the 53-episode television serial based on Jawaharlal Nehru's book, Discovery of India (Bharat Ek Khoj)(1988) .

Soon, Shyam Benegal stepped beyond traditional narrative films, and took to biographical material to achieve greater freedom of expression [ [http://www.metroactive.com/metro-santa-cruz/09.05.07/movies-shyambenegal.html Shyam Benegal Retrospective, 2007] ] . His first venture in this genre was with a documentary film based on Satyajit Ray’s life, titled, 'Satyajit Ray, the Filmmaker', in 1985. This was followed by similar biographical works like Sardari Begum (1996), and Zubeidaa, which written by film critic Khalid Mohammed based on his mother's life in 2001.

The 90s and beyond

The 90s saw Shyam Benegal making a trilogy on Indian Muslim women, starting with Mammo (1995), Sardari Begum (1996), and Zubeidaa (2001). Also with Zubeidaa, he entered the Bollywood mainstream for the first time, as it starred top Bollywood star Karishma Kapoor, and boasted music by A. R. Rahman.

In 1992, he made another classic, Suraj Ka Satvan Ghoda (Seventh Horse of the Sun) based on a novel by Dharmavir Bharati, which won the 1993 National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi. After that, in 1996 he made another film based on a book, The Making of the Mahatma, based on Fatima Meer's, The Apprenticeship of a Mahatma. This turn to biographical material, resulted in , his 2005 English language film. Before the 90s ended, he created another National Film Award for Best Film winning film, in Samar (1999), with a scathing view on Indian caste system.

Shyam Benegal also owns a production company called, 'Sahyadri Films'.

He has also authored three books based on his own films, 'The Churning' with Vijay Tendulkar in 1984 on Manthan; 'Satyajit Ray', 1988 based on his biographical film, 'Satyajit Ray, Filmmaker'; and 'The Marketplace' in 1989 on Mandi.

Current projects

His latest film is, a commerically sleeper hit, "Welcome to Sajjanpur", an unusual mix of a satire & a romantic comedy set in rural India, starring Shreyas Talpade & Amrita Rao [ [http://movies.indiainfo.com/2007/12/04/0712040958_amrita.html Amrita Rao in Shyam Benegal's next] ] , film's music is by Shantanu Moitra [ [http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1132869 dnaindia,November 12, 2007] ] and is produced by Chetan Motiwalla; which was released on Spetember 9, 2008.

Following this, Shyam Benegal is set to direct an epic musical 'Chamki' [ [http://www.ndtvmovies.com/newstory.asp?section=Movies&Slug=Shyam+Benegal+gives+Yashpal+his+due&Id=ENTEN20070032660 Yashpal Sharma in Chamki] "NDTV".] , about love, jealousy and betrayal, inspired by George Bizet's classic Spanish opera Carmen. The story revolves around the eponymous Chamki, a beautiful gypsy girl with a fiery temper & is written by Shama Zaidi. The music by A. R. Rahman & lyrics by Javed Akhtar. Chamki, to be produced by Chetan Motiwalla. The film is in the casting stage & scheduled to go on floor in October 2008.

One of his future projects is a film based on "Noor Inayat Khan" - a descendant of Tipu Sultan, who served as a British-Indian spy during the World War II [ [http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14557389 Benegal set to film story of British-Indian spy] ] .

Beyond films

Shyam Benegal is married to Neera Benegal. He is also involved with the Mumbai based film school Whistling Woods International as chairman of the academic council.

Filmography

Awards

Shyam Benegal has won the following awards (in bold) and nominations.

National Film Awards

* 1975 Second Best Feature Film for "Ankur"
* 1976 Best Feature Film in Hindi for "Nishant"
* 1977 Best Feature Film in Hindi for "Manthan"
* 1978 Best Screenplay for "Bhumika"
* 1979 Best Feature Film in Hindi for "Junoon"
* 1982 Best Feature Film in Hindi for "Arohan"
* 1984 Best Historical Reconstruction for "Nehru"
* 1985 Best Biographical Film for "Satyajit Ray, Filmmaker"
* 1986 Best Director for "Trikaal"
* 1993 Best Feature Film in Hindi for "Suraj Ka Satvan Ghoda"
* 1995 Best Feature Film in Hindi for "Mammo"
* 1996 Best Feature Film in English for "The Making of the Mahatma"
* 1997 Best Feature Film in Urdu for "Sardari Begum"
* 1999 Best Feature Film for "Samar"
* 1999 Best Feature Film on Family Welfare for "Hari-Bhari"
* 2001 Best Feature Film in Hindi for "Zubeidaa"
* 2005 Nargis Dutt Award for Best Feature Film on National Integration for ""

Filmfare Awards

* 1980 Best Director for "Junoon"
* 1982 Best Director for "Kalyug"

Cannes Film Festival

* 1976: Golden Palm: "Nishant": Nominated [ [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073458/awards Nishant - Awards] "Internet Movie Database".]

Berlin International Film Festival

* 1974 Golden Berlin Bear for "Ankur" : Nominated [ [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071145/awards Ankur - Awards] "Internet Movie Database".]

Moscow International Film Festival

* 1981 Golden Prize for "Kalyug"
* 1997 Golden St. George for "Sardari Begum"

Honours

* 1970: Homi Bhabha Fellowship (1970-72)
* 1976 - Padma Shri
* 1989: Sovietland Nehru Award
* 1991 - Padma Bhushan
* 2004 - Indira Gandhi Award for National Integration [ [http://www.iacfpa.org/p_news/nit/iacpa-archieve/2004/12/31/review23-31122004.shtml Indira Gandhi Award for National Integration] ]
* 2006 - Dadasaheb Phalke Award [ [http://www.ibnlive.com/news/shyam-benegal-wins-dada-saheb-phalke-award/46445-8.html ibnlive] ] [ [http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Dadasaheb_Phalke_award_for_Shyam_Benegal/articleshow/2265297.cms Dadasaheb Phalke Award, The Times of India] "Times of India", Aug 8, 2007.]

Bibliography

* "Benegal on Ray: Satyajit Ray, a Film", by Shyam Benegal, Alaknanda Datta, Samik Banerjee. Seagull Books, 1988. ISBN 8170460212.
* "Shyam Benegal's the Churning (Manthan): Screenplay", by, Vijay Tendulkar, Shyam Benegal, Samik Banerjee. Seagull Books, 1984. ISBN 0861320700.

Further reading

* Shyam Benegal (Bfi World Directors) - Sangeeta Datta. "2003, British Film Institute". ISBN 0851709087.
* Bollywood Babylon: Interviews with Shyam Benegal, William van der Heide. "2006, Berg Publishers." ISBN 1845204050.
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/hardtalk/5293494.stm BBC's Tom Brook interviews Shyam Benegal on 25th August 2006]
* [http://www.bfi.org.uk/features/interviews/benegal.html Girish Karnad interviews Shyam Benegal, National Film Theatre, 2002]

References

External links

*imdb name|id=0070867|name=Shyam Benegal
* [http://dearcinema.com/shyam-benegal-interview/ In Conversation with Shyam Benegal]
* [http://www.upperstall.com/people/shyambenegal.html Shyam Benegal on Upperstall]
* [http://www.reachouthyderabad.com/newsmaker/nm66a.htm Awards & recognition for Shyam Benegal's films]

Persondata
NAME= Shyam Benegal
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION= Film director, Screenwriter
DATE OF BIRTH= 1934-12-14
PLACE OF BIRTH= Alwal, Secunderabad
DATE OF DEATH=
PLACE OF DEATH=