1. Shyam Benegal was an Indian film director, screenwriter and documentary filmmaker.
29 Facts About Shyam Benegal
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Shyam Benegal has received several accolades, including eighteen National Film Awards, a Filmfare Award and a Nandi Award.
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Shyam Benegal died on 23 December 2024, aged 90, at Wockhardt Hospital in Mumbai, where he was receiving treatment for chronic kidney disease.
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Benegal was born in Hyderabad to Sridhar B Benegal who was prominent in the field of photography.
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Shyam Benegal has won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi seven times.
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Shyam Benegal was awarded the V Shantaram Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018.
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Shyam Benegal was born on 14 December 1934 in a Konkani-speaking Hindu family in Hyderabad, as Shyam Sunder Benegal.
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Meanwhile, Shyam Benegal made his first documentary in Gujarati, Gher Betha Ganga in 1962.
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Shyam Benegal was awarded the Homi J Bhabha Fellowship which allowed him to work at the Children's Television Workshop, New York, and later at Boston's WGBH-TV.
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The film introduced actors Shabana Azmi and Anant Nag and Shyam Benegal won the 1975 National Film Award for Second Best Feature Film.
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Shyam Benegal used a variety of new actors, mainly from the FTII and NSD, such as Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Smita Patil, Shabana Azmi, Kulbhushan Kharbanda and Amrish Puri.
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Shyam Benegal made it for the Children's Film Society, India.
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Unlike most New Cinema filmmakers, Shyam Benegal has had private backers for many of his films and institutional backing for a few, including Manthan and Susman.
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Shyam Benegal turned to TV where he directed serials such as Yatra, for the Indian Railways, and one of the biggest projects undertaken on Indian television, the 53-episode television serial Bharat Ek Khoj based on Jawaharlal Nehru's book, Discovery of India.
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Shyam Benegal served as the Director of the National Film Development Corporation from 1980 to 1986.
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Shyam Benegal's next film Mandi, was a satirical comedy about politics and prostitution, starring Shabana Azmi and Smita Patil.
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Later, working from his own story, based on the last days of Portuguese in Goa, in the early 1960s, Shyam Benegal explored human relationships in Trikal.
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Soon, Shyam Benegal stepped beyond traditional narrative films and took to biographical material to achieve greater freedom of expression.
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The 1990s saw Shyam Benegal making a trilogy on Indian Muslim women, starting with Mammo, Sardari Begum and Zubeidaa.
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Shyam Benegal criticised the Indian caste system in Samar, which went on to win the National Film Award for Best Feature Film.
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Shyam Benegal served as a president of the president of the Federation of Film Societies of India.
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Shyam Benegal was the owner of a production company called Sahyadri Films.
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Shyam Benegal was the author of three books based on his own films: The Churning with Vijay Tendulkar, which was based on Manthan; Satyajit Ray, based on his biographical cinema, Satyajit Ray; and The Marketplace, based on Mandi.
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Shyam Benegal is slated to direct an epic musical, Chamki Chameli, inspired by Georges Bizet's classic Spanish opera Carmen.
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In March 2010, Shyam Benegal released the political satire Well Done Abba.
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One of Shyam Benegal's last projects was a film based on the life of Noor Inayat Khan, daughter of Inayat Khan and descendant of Tipu Sultan, who served as a British spy during World War II.
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Shyam Benegal made a comeback on the small screen with Samvidhaan, a 10-part mini-series revolving around the making of the Indian Constitution, to be aired on Rajya Sabha TV from 2 March 2014.
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Shyam Benegal was married to Nira Benegal and had a daughter, Pia Benegal, a costume designer, who worked for many films.
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Shyam Benegal died of kidney disease at Wockhardt Hospital Mumbai Central, on 23 December 2024, at the age of 90.