Parallel Cinema
Encyclopedia
The Indian New Wave, commonly known in India as Art Cinema
Art film
An art film is the result of filmmaking which is typically a serious, independent film aimed at a niche market rather than a mass market audience...

or Parallel Cinema as an alternative to the mainstream commercial cinema, is a specific movement in Indian cinema
Cinema of India
The cinema of India consists of films produced across India, which includes the cinematic culture of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Orissa, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal. Indian films came to be followed throughout South Asia and...

, known for its serious content, realism
Realism (arts)
Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...

 and naturalism, with a keen eye on the sociopolitical climate of the times. This movement is distinct from mainstream Bollywood
Bollywood
Bollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai , Maharashtra, India. The term is often incorrectly used to refer to the whole of Indian cinema; it is only a part of the total Indian film industry, which includes other production centers producing...

 cinema and began around the same time as the French New Wave
French New Wave
The New Wave was a blanket term coined by critics for a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced by Italian Neorealism and classical Hollywood cinema. Although never a formally organized movement, the New Wave filmmakers were linked by their self-conscious rejection of...

 and Japanese New Wave. The movement was initially led by Bengali cinema
Bengali cinema
Bengali cinema refers to the Bengali language filmmaking industries in the Bengal region of South Asia. There are two major film-making hubs in the region: one in Kolkata, West Bengal, India and the other in Dhaka, Bangladesh .The history of cinema in Bengal dates back to the 1890s, when the first...

 (which has produced internationally acclaimed filmmakers such as Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray was an Indian Bengali filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema. Ray was born in the city of Kolkata into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature...

, Mrinal Sen
Mrinal Sen
Mrinal Sen is a Bengali Indian filmmaker. He was born on 14 May 1923, in the town of Faridpur, now in Bangladesh in a Hindu family. After finishing his high school there, he left home to come to Calcutta as a student and studied physics at the well-known Scottish Church College and at the...

, Ritwik Ghatak, and others) and then gained prominence in the other film industries of India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

.

Origins

Realism in Indian cinema dates back to the 1920s and 1930s. One of the earliest examples was V. Shantaram
V. Shantaram
V. Shantaram is a renowned Indian filmmaker, film producer and actor. He is most known for his films like Dr...

's 1925 silent film
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...

 classic Sawkari Pash (Indian Shylock), about a poor peasant (portrayed by Shantaram) who "loses his land to a greedy moneylender and is forced to migrate to the city to become a mill worker. Acclaimed as a realistic breakthrough, its shot of a howling dog near a hut, has become a milestone in the march of Indian cinema." The 1937 Shantaram film Duniya Na Mane (The Unaccepted) also critiqued the treatment of women in Indian society.

Early years

The Parallel Cinema movement began to take shape from the late 1940s to the 1960s, by pioneers such as Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray was an Indian Bengali filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema. Ray was born in the city of Kolkata into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature...

, Ritwik Ghatak, Bimal Roy
Bimal Roy
Bimal Roy was one of the most acclaimed Indian film directors of all time. He is particularly noted for his realistic and socialistic films like Do Bigha Zamin, Parineeta, Biraj Bahu, Madhumati, Sujata, and Bandini, making him an important director of Hindi cinema...

, Mrinal Sen
Mrinal Sen
Mrinal Sen is a Bengali Indian filmmaker. He was born on 14 May 1923, in the town of Faridpur, now in Bangladesh in a Hindu family. After finishing his high school there, he left home to come to Calcutta as a student and studied physics at the well-known Scottish Church College and at the...

, Khwaja Ahmad Abbas
Khwaja Ahmad Abbas
Khwaja Ahmad Abbas , popularly known as K. A. Abbas, was an Indian film director, novelist, screenwriter, and a journalist in the Urdu, Hindi and English languages...

, Chetan Anand
Chetan Anand (producer & director)
Chetan Anand was an acclaimed Hindi film producer, screenwriter and director from India, whose debut film, Neecha Nagar, bagged the Palme d'Or award, at the Cannes Film Festival in 1946....

, Guru Dutt
Guru Dutt
Vasanth Kumar Shivashankar Padukone , popularly known as Guru Dutt, was an Indian film director, producer and actor. He is often credited with ushering in the golden era of Hindi cinema...

 and V. Shantaram
V. Shantaram
V. Shantaram is a renowned Indian filmmaker, film producer and actor. He is most known for his films like Dr...

. This period is considered part of the 'Golden Age' of Indian cinema. Film makers of this era have collectively created a body of work known of its technical brilliance as well as artistic simplicity and thematic grandeur.

This cinema borrowed heavily from the Indian literature
Indian literature
Indian literature refers to the literature produced on the Indian subcontinent until 1947 and in the Republic of India thereafter. The Republic of India has 22 officially recognized languages....

 of the times, hence became an important study of the contemporary Indian society, and is now used by scholars and historians alike to map the changing demographics the and socio-economic as well political temperament of the Indian populace. Right from its inception, Indian cinema has had people who wanted to and did use the medium for more than entertainment. They used it to highlight prevalent issues and sometimes to throw open new issues for the public. An early example was Chetan Anand's Neecha Nagar
Neecha Nagar
Neecha Nagar is a 1946 Hindi film directed by Chetan Anand. Written by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, this film was a pioneering effort in social realism in Indian cinema, and paved the way for many such 'Parallel Cinema' films by other directors and many of them written by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas...

(1946), a social realist
Social realism
Social Realism, also known as Socio-Realism, is an artistic movement, expressed in the visual and other realist arts, which depicts social and racial injustice, economic hardship, through unvarnished pictures of life's struggles; often depicting working class activities as heroic...

 film that won the Grand Prize
Palme d'Or
The Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...

 at the first Cannes Film Festival
1946 Cannes Film Festival
The 1st Cannes Film Festival was held from September 20 to October 5, 1946.- Jury :*Georges Huisman *Iris Barry *Beaulieu *Antonin Brousil *J.H.J...

. Since then, Indian independent films were frequently in competition for the Palme d'Or
Palme d'Or
The Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...

 at the Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...

 throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, with some of them winning major prizes at the festival.

During the 1950s and the 1960s, intellectual filmmakers and story writers became frustrated with musical film
Musical film
The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate...

s. To counter this, they created a genre of films which depicted reality from an artful perspective. Most films made during this period were funded by state governments to promote an authentic art genre from the Indian film fraternity. The most famous Indian "neo-realist
Neorealism (art)
In art, neorealism was established by the ex-Camden Town Group painters Charles Ginner and Harold Gilman at the beginning of World War I. They set out to explore the spirit of their age through the shapes and colours of daily life...

" was the Bengali film
Bengali cinema
Bengali cinema refers to the Bengali language filmmaking industries in the Bengal region of South Asia. There are two major film-making hubs in the region: one in Kolkata, West Bengal, India and the other in Dhaka, Bangladesh .The history of cinema in Bengal dates back to the 1890s, when the first...

 director Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray was an Indian Bengali filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema. Ray was born in the city of Kolkata into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature...

, followed by Shyam Benegal
Shyam Benegal
Shyam Benegal is a prolific Indian director and screenwriter. With his first four feature films Ankur , Nishant Manthan and Bhumika he created a new genre, which has now come to be called the "middle cinema" in India although he himself has expressed dislike in the term preferring his work to...

, Mrinal Sen
Mrinal Sen
Mrinal Sen is a Bengali Indian filmmaker. He was born on 14 May 1923, in the town of Faridpur, now in Bangladesh in a Hindu family. After finishing his high school there, he left home to come to Calcutta as a student and studied physics at the well-known Scottish Church College and at the...

, Adoor Gopalakrishnan
Adoor Gopalakrishnan
Moutatthu "Adoor" Gopalakrishnan Unnithan is an Indian film director, script writer, and producer. Adoor Gopalakrishnan had a major role in revolutionizing Malayalam cinema and is regarded as one of the greatest filmmakers of India.. Adoor's first film Swayamvaram pioneered the new wave cinema...

 and Girish Kasaravalli
Girish Kasaravalli
Girish Kasaravalli is a noted film director, and one of the pioneers of the Parallel Cinema in Kannada cinema, who has won the National Film Award for Best Film four times, Ghatashraddha , Tabarana Kathe , Thaayi Saheba and Dweepa...

. Ray's most famous films were Pather Panchali (1955), Aparajito
Aparajito
Aparajito is a 1956 Bengali film directed by Satyajit Ray, and is the second part of The Apu Trilogy. It is adapted from the last one-fifth of Bibhutibhushan Bannerjee's novel Pather Panchali and the first one-third of its sequel Aparajito. It focuses on the life of Apu from childhood to college...

(1956) and The World of Apu (1959), which formed The Apu Trilogy. Produced on a shoestring budget of Rs.
Indian rupee
The Indian rupee is the official currency of the Republic of India. The issuance of the currency is controlled by the Reserve Bank of India....

 150,000 ($3000), the three films won major prizes at the Cannes
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...

, Berlin
Berlin International Film Festival
The Berlin International Film Festival , also called the Berlinale, is one of the world's leading film festivals and most reputable media events. It is held in Berlin, Germany. Founded in West Berlin in 1951, the festival has been celebrated annually in February since 1978...

 and Venice Film Festival
Venice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...

s, and are today frequently listed among the greatest films of all time.

Certain art films have also garnered commercial success, in an industry known for its surrealism or 'fantastical' movies, and successfully combined features of both art and commercial cinema. An early example of this was Bimal Roy
Bimal Roy
Bimal Roy was one of the most acclaimed Indian film directors of all time. He is particularly noted for his realistic and socialistic films like Do Bigha Zamin, Parineeta, Biraj Bahu, Madhumati, Sujata, and Bandini, making him an important director of Hindi cinema...

's Do Bigha Zamin (1953), which was both a commercial and critical success. The film won the International Prize at the 1954 Cannes Film Festival
1954 Cannes Film Festival
-Jury:*Jean Cocteau *Jean Aurenche *André Bazin *Luis Buñuel*Henri Calef *Guy Desson *Philippe Erlanger *Michel Fourre-Cormeray *Jacques-Pierre Frogerais...

 and paved the way for the Indian New Wave. Hrishikesh Mukherjee
Hrishikesh Mukherjee
Hrishikesh Mukherjee ) was a famous Indian film director known for a number of films, including Satyakam, Chupke Chupke, Anupama, Anand, Abhimaan, Guddi, Gol Maal, Aashirwad, Bawarchi, and Namak Haraam.Popularly known as Hrishi-da, he directed 42 films during his career spanning over four decades,...

, one of Hindi cinema's most successful filmmakers, was named the pioneer of 'middle cinema', and was renowned for making films that reflected the changing middle-class ethos. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, Mukherjee "carved a middle path between the extravagance of mainstream cinema and the stark relism of art cinema". Another filmmaker to integrate art and commercial cinema was Guru Dutt
Guru Dutt
Vasanth Kumar Shivashankar Padukone , popularly known as Guru Dutt, was an Indian film director, producer and actor. He is often credited with ushering in the golden era of Hindi cinema...

, whose film Pyaasa
Pyaasa
Pyaasa is a 1957 Indian film produced and directed by Guru Dutt. The film tells the story of struggling poet, Vijay , trying to make his works known in post-independence India...

(1957) featured in Time magazine's "All-TIME" 100 best movies list.

In the 1960s, the Indian government began financing independent art films based on Indian themes. Many of the directors were graduates of the FTII
FTII
FTII may refer to:* Film and Television Institute of India, Pune* a title indicating that the bearer is a Fellow of The Chartered Institute of Taxation in the United Kingdom...

 (Film and Television Institute of India
Film and Television Institute of India
Film and Television Institute of India , is an autonomous Institute under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India. It is fully aided by Central Government of India. It is situated in the premises of the erstwhile Prabhat Film Company in Pune, India...

), in Pune
Pune
Pune , is the eighth largest metropolis in India, the second largest in the state of Maharashtra after Mumbai, and the largest city in the Western Ghats. Once the centre of power of the Maratha Empire, it is situated 560 metres above sea level on the Deccan plateau at the confluence of the Mula ...

. The Bengali film
Bengali cinema
Bengali cinema refers to the Bengali language filmmaking industries in the Bengal region of South Asia. There are two major film-making hubs in the region: one in Kolkata, West Bengal, India and the other in Dhaka, Bangladesh .The history of cinema in Bengal dates back to the 1890s, when the first...

 director Ritwik Ghatak was a professor at the institute and a well-known director. Unlike Ray, however, Ghatak did not gain international fame during his lifetime. For example, Ghatak's Nagarik
Nagarik
Nagarik ,also spelled as Nagorik, The Citizen in English, was the first feature-length film directed by Indian director Ritwik Ghatak. Completed in 1952, it preceded Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali as perhaps, the first example of an art film in Bengali cinema, but is deprived of that honor, since...

(1952) was perhaps the earliest example of a Bengali art film, preceding Ray's Pather Panchali by three years, but was not released until after his death in 1977. His first commercial release Ajantrik
Ajantrik
Ajantrik is a 1958 Indian Bengali film written and directed by parallel filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak...

(1958) was also one of the earliest films to portray an inanimate object, in this case an automobile
Automobile
An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...

, as a character in the story, many years before the Herbie
Herbie
Herbie is an anthropomorphic Volkswagen Beetle, a character that is featured in several Disney motion pictures starting with the 1968 feature film The Love Bug. He has a mind of his own and is capable of driving himself, and is a serious contender in auto racing competitions...

 films. The protagonist of Ajantrik, Bimal, can also be seen as an influence on the cynical cab driver Narasingh (played by Soumitra Chatterjee
Soumitra Chatterjee
Soumitra Chatterjee or Soumitra Chattopadhyay is an iconic Bengali actor from India, known among other things for his frequent collaborations with the great Bengali film director Satyajit Ray and his constant comparison with the Bengali screen idol Uttam Kumar.-Background:Soumitra graduated from...

) in Satyajit Ray's Abhijan
Abhijan
Abhijan is a 1962 Bengali film directed by the Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray.-Introduction:The filming of Abhijan began by the first half of 1961 when Bijoy Chatterjee asked Satyajit Ray to write a script on a popular Bengali novel of the same name by Tarashankar Bandopadhyay...

(1962).

Growth

During the 1970s and the 1980s, parallel cinema entered into the limelight of Hindi cinema
Bollywood
Bollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai , Maharashtra, India. The term is often incorrectly used to refer to the whole of Indian cinema; it is only a part of the total Indian film industry, which includes other production centers producing...

 to a much wider extent. This was led by such directors as Gulzar, Shyam Benegal
Shyam Benegal
Shyam Benegal is a prolific Indian director and screenwriter. With his first four feature films Ankur , Nishant Manthan and Bhumika he created a new genre, which has now come to be called the "middle cinema" in India although he himself has expressed dislike in the term preferring his work to...

 and Saeed Akhtar Mirza
Saeed Akhtar Mirza
Saeed Akhtar Mirza is an Indian screenwriter and director in Hindi films and television. He is the maker of important Parallel cinema films like Mohan Joshi Hazir Ho! , Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyon Ata Hai , Salim Langde Pe Mat Ro and Naseem , which won two National Film Awards in 1996.He is...

, and later on Mahesh Bhatt
Mahesh Bhatt
Mahesh Bhatt , is a prominent Indian film director, producer and screenwriter.Bhatt's early directional career consisted of acclaimed films, such as Arth, Saaransh, Janam, Naam and Zakhm....

 and Govind Nihalani
Govind Nihalani
Govind Nihalani is an Indian director, cinematographer, and also a screenwriter and film producer. He has been directing Hindi films since the late seventies, and worked in the television medium.- Biography :...

, becoming the main directors of this period's Indian art cinema. Benegal's directorial debut, Ankur
Ankur (film)
Ankur is an Indian colour film of 1974. It was the first feature film directed by Shyam Benegal and the debut of Indian actors Shabana Azmi and Anant Nag...

(Seeding, 1974) was a major critical success, and was followed by numerous works that created another field in the movement. These filmmakers tried to promote realism in their own different styles, though many of them often accepted certain conventions of popular cinema. Parallel cinema of this time gave careers to a whole new breed of young actors, including Shabana Azmi
Shabana Azmi
Shabana Azmi is an Indian actress of film, television and theatre. An alumna of the Film and Television Institute of India of Pune, she made her film debut in 1974 and soon became one of the leading actresses of parallel cinema, an Indian New Wave movement known for its serious content and...

, Smita Patil
Smita Patil
Smita Patil was an Indian actress of film, television and theatre. Regarded among the finest stage and film actresses of her times, Patil appeared in over 75 Hindi and Marathi films in a career that spanned just over a decade. During her career, she received two National Film Awards and a...

, Amol Palekar
Amol Palekar
Amol Palekar is an Indian actor of the 1970s and a director of Hindi and Marathi cinema.-Theater career:Palekar began in Marathi experimental theatre with Satyadev Dubey, and later started his own group, Aniket, in 1972 [citation needed]...

, Om Puri
Om Puri
Om Puri is an Indian actor who has appeared in both mainstream Indian films and art films. His credits also include appearances in British and American films. He has received an honorary OBE.-Early life:...

, Naseeruddin Shah
Naseeruddin Shah
Naseeruddin Shah is an Indian / Bollywood film actor and director. He is considered to be one of the finest actors of Indian cinema. In 2003, the Government of India honored him with the Padma Bhushan for his contributions towards Indian cinema.-Early life:...

, Kulbhushan Kharbanda
Kulbhushan Kharbanda
Kulbhushan Kharbanda is an Indian actor, who worked in Hindi and Punjabi films, and is known as character Shakaal in Shaan inspired by the character of Blofeld from James Bond movies...

, Pankaj Kapoor
Pankaj Kapoor
Pankaj Kapur is an Indian theatre, television and film actor from Ludhiana, Punjab, India. He has appeared in several television serials and films. His most acclaimed film roles to date have been that of Dr...

, and even actors from commercial cinema like Rekha and Hema Malini
Hema Malini
Hema Malini is an Indian actress, director and producer, as well as a Bharatanatyam dancer-choreographer. Making her acting debut in Sapno Ka Saudagar , she went on to appear in numerous Bollywood films, most notably those with actor and future-husband Dharmendra. She was initially promoted as...

 ventured into art cinema.

Adoor Gopalakrishnan
Adoor Gopalakrishnan
Moutatthu "Adoor" Gopalakrishnan Unnithan is an Indian film director, script writer, and producer. Adoor Gopalakrishnan had a major role in revolutionizing Malayalam cinema and is regarded as one of the greatest filmmakers of India.. Adoor's first film Swayamvaram pioneered the new wave cinema...

 extended the Indian New Wave to Malayalam cinema with his film Swayamvaram
Swayamvaram
Swayamvaram is a 1972 Malayalam feature film co-written and directed by Adoor Gopalakrishnan starring Madhu and Sharada in the lead roles. Notable smaller roles are filled by Thikkurisi Sukumaran Nair, Adoor Bhavani, Bharath Gopi, and K. P. A. C. Lalitha. The film was produced by the Chitralekha...

in 1972. Long after the Golden Age of Indian cinema, Malayalam cinema experienced its own 'Golden Age' in the 1980s and early 1990s. Some of the most acclaimed Indian filmmakers at the time were from the Malayalam industry, including Adoor Gopalakrishnan, G. Aravindan
G. Aravindan
Govindan Aravindan who was popularly known as G. Aravindan was a national award winning film director, screenwriter, musician and cartoonist from Kerala, India. He was known for his unorthodox way of film-making; he changed his cinematic forms consistently and experimented in story telling without...

, Padmarajan
Padmarajan
P. Padmarajan was an Indian author, screenwriter, and film director who contributed in Malayalam language. Padmarajan was the founder of a new school of film making in Malayalam, along with Bharathan, in the 1980s, which created films that were widely received while also being critically acclaimed...

, John Abraham (director), T. V. Chandran
T. V. Chandran
T. V. Chandran is an Indian filmmaker, script writer, and actor. He is most known for his art-house films which have references to history and undertones of politics and feminism...

 and Shaji N. Karun
Shaji N. Karun
Shaji Neelakantan Karun is a National Award-winning Indian film director and cinematographer. His debut film Piravi won the Caméra d'Or - Mention d'honneur at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival...

. Gopalakrishnan, who is often considered to be Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray was an Indian Bengali filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema. Ray was born in the city of Kolkata into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature...

's spiritual heir, directed some of his most acclaimed films during this period, including Elippathayam
Elippathayam
Elippathayam is an Malayalam Film written and directed by Adoor Gopalakrishnan. It is critically considered by many to be one of the most outstanding piece in Adoor Gopalakrishnan's filmography....

(1981) which won the Sutherland Trophy
Sutherland Trophy
Created in 1958, the Sutherland Trophy was awarded annually by the British Film Institute to "the maker of the most original and imaginative [first or second feature] film introduced at the National Film Theatre during the year"...

 at the London Film Festival
London Film Festival
The BFI London Film Festival is the UK's largest public film event, screening more than 300 features, documentaries and shorts from almost 50 countries. The festival, , currently in its 54th year, is run every year in the second half of October under the umbrella of the British Film Institute...

, as well as Mathilukal
Mathilukal
This article has details about the novel as well as its film adaptation.Mathilukal is a Malayalam novel written by Vaikom Muhammad Basheer in 1965. It is one of the most cherished and well-known love stories in Malayalam. Its hero, Basheer himself, and heroine, Narayani, never meet, yet they love...

(1989) which won major prizes at the Venice Film Festival
Venice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...

. Shaji N. Karun's debut film Piravi
Piravi
Piravi is a 1988 Malayalam feature film directed by Shaji N. Karun. It stars Premji, Archana and Lakshmi Krishnamurthy. The film's music is composed by G. Aravindan. Piravi met with widespread critical acclaim upon release...

(1989) won the Camera d'Or
Caméra d'Or
The Caméra d'Or is an award of the Cannes Film Festival for the best first feature film presented in one of the Cannes' selections ....

 at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival
1989 Cannes Film Festival
- Jury :*Wim Wenders *Christine Gouze-Renal*Claude Beylie*Georges Delerue*Hector Babenco*Krzysztof Kieślowski*Peter Handke*Renée Blanchar*Sally Field*Silvio Clementelli-Feature film competition:* Chimère by Claire Devers...

, while his second film Swaham
Swaham
Swaham is an award-winning feature film directed by Shaji N. Karun. The film is in Malayalam. It stars Aswani, Venumani Vishnu and Mullenezhi. The film's music is composed by Isaac Thomas Kottukapally and K. Raghavan. Swaham met with widespread critical acclaim upon release...

(1994) was in competition for the Palme d'Or
Palme d'Or
The Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...

 at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival
1994 Cannes Film Festival
The 1994 Cannes Film Festival started on 12 May and ran until 23 May. The Palme d'Or went to the American film Pulp Fiction directed by Quentin Tarantino.-Official Selection:*Clint Eastwood *Catherine Deneuve...

.

Girish Kasaravalli
Girish Kasaravalli
Girish Kasaravalli is a noted film director, and one of the pioneers of the Parallel Cinema in Kannada cinema, who has won the National Film Award for Best Film four times, Ghatashraddha , Tabarana Kathe , Thaayi Saheba and Dweepa...

, Girish Karnad
Girish Karnad
Girish Raghunath Karnad is a contemporary writer, playwright, screenwriter, actor and movie director in Kannada language...

  and B. V. Karanth
B. V. Karanth
Babukodi Venkataramana Karanth was a renowned film and theatre personality from India...

 led the way for parallel cinema in the Kannada film industry
Cinema of Karnataka
The cinema of Karnataka , sometimes colloquially referred to as Sandalwood and as Chandanavana in Kannada, encompasses movies made in the Indian state of Karnataka based in Bangalore. Most of the movies are made in Kannada, with a handful of them in Konkani or Tulu. Today more than 100 films are...

, while Mani Ratnam
Mani Ratnam
Mani Ratnam is an Indian filmmaker, screenwriter and producer. He made his directorial debut with the Kannada film Pallavi Anu Pallavi starring Anil Kapoor in 1983...

 and Kamal Haasan
Kamal Haasan
Kamal Haasan is an Indian film actor, screenwriter and director, considered to be one of the leading method actors of Indian cinema. He is widely acclaimed as an actor and is well known for his versatility in acting...

 have done the same for Tamil cinema
Tamil cinema
Tamil cinema is the film industry based in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, dedicated to the production of films in the Tamil language. It is based in Chennai's Kodambakkam district, where several South Indian film production companies are headquartered...

.

Decline

By the early 1990s, the rising costs involved in film production and the commercialization of the films had a negative impact on the art films. The fact that investment returns cannot be guaranteed made art films less popular amongst filmmakers. Underworld financing, political and economic turmoil, television and piracy proved to be fatal threat to parallel cinema, as it declined.

Resurgence

The term "parallel cinema" has started being applied to off-beat films produced in Bollywood
Bollywood
Bollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai , Maharashtra, India. The term is often incorrectly used to refer to the whole of Indian cinema; it is only a part of the total Indian film industry, which includes other production centers producing...

, where art films have begun experiencing a resurgence. This led to the emergence of a distinct genre known as Mumbai noir, urban films reflecting social problems in the city of Mumbai
Mumbai
Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...

.

Other modern examples of art films produced in Bollywood which are classified as part of the parallel cinema genre include Mani Ratnam
Mani Ratnam
Mani Ratnam is an Indian filmmaker, screenwriter and producer. He made his directorial debut with the Kannada film Pallavi Anu Pallavi starring Anil Kapoor in 1983...

's Dil Se
Dil Se
Dil Se is a 1998 Hindi film directed by Mani Ratnam. The film stars Shahrukh Khan, Manisha Koirala, and Preity Zinta. Mani Ratnam also co-wrote the screenplay for the film...

(1998) and Yuva
Yuva
Yuva , originally titled Howrah Bridge is a feature film directed by Indian director Mani Ratnam and released in 2004. Simultaneously made in Hindi and Tamil , the prime objective of the movie was to motivate educated Indian youths to enter politics.The film tells the stories of three young men...

(2004), Nagesh Kukunoor
Nagesh Kukunoor
Nagesh Kukunoor is an Indian filmmaker and screenwriter. He is known for movies such as Hyderabad Blues , Rockford , 3 Deewarein and Iqbal .-Early life:...

's 3 Deewarein
3 Deewarein
3 Deewarein is a 2003 Hindi film written, directed and co-starred by Nagesh Kukunoor. Jackie Shroff, Juhi Chawla, Naseeruddin Shah and Gulshan Grover form the rest of the cast. The film narrates the story of three prisoners and a documentary filmmaker who, while filming their reformation story in...

(2003) and Dor
Dor (film)
Dor is a 2006 Indian drama film written and directed by Nagesh Kukunoor and features Ayesha Takia, Gul Panag and Shreyas Talpade as the lead actors. The film, which is a remake of the Malayalam film, Perumazhakkalam , was well received by the critics after its release on 22 September 2006...

(2006), Sudhir Mishra
Sudhir Mishra
Sudhir Mishra is an Indian film director and screenwriter most renowned for directing critically acclaimed films like Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, Dharavi and Chameli.-Early life and education:...

's Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi
Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi
Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, is an Indian movie made by director Sudhir Mishra in 2003, but released in 2005. Set against the backdrop of the Indian Emergency, the movie tells the story of three youngsters in the 70s, when India was undergoing massive social and political changes...

(2005), Jahnu Barua
Jahnu Barua
Jahnu Barua is a multiple national and international award-winning Indian film director from Assam. He has directed a number of Assamese and Hindi films, and along with Bhabendra Nath Saikia was one of the pioneers of Assamese Art cinema...

's Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara
Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara
Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara , is an Indian film, directed by Jahnu Barua and produced by Anupam Kher...

(2005), Pan Nalin's Valley of Flowers (2006), Nandita Das
Nandita Das
Nandita Das is an award-winning Indian film actress and director. As an actress, she is known for her performances in Fire , Earth , Bawandar , Kannathil Muthamittal and Aamaar Bhuvan . As a director, she is known for her directorial debut Firaaq , which has won a number of national and...

' Firaaq
Firaaq
Firaaq is a 2008 Hindi political thriller film set one month after the 2002 violence in Gujarat, India, and looks at the aftermath in terms of the effects on the lives of everyday people. It claims to be based on "a thousand true stories". Firaaq means both separation and quest in Urdu...

(2008), Onir
Onir
Onir is an Indian film director, editor, writer and producer. He is best known for his film My Brother... Nikhil, one of the first mainstream Hindi films to deal with AIDS and same-sex relationships.-Life and career:...

's My Brother… Nikhil (2005) and Bas Ek Pal
Bas Ek Pal
Bas Ek Pal is a 2006 Bollywood film, directed by Onir. The movie stars Juhi Chawla, Urmila Matondkar, Jimmy Shergill, Sanjay Suri, Rehaan Engineer and Yashpal Sharma...

(2006), Anurag Kashyap
Anurag Kashyap (director)
Anurag Singh Kashyap is an Indian film director and screenwriter. As a director, he is known for Black Friday , a controversial and award-winning Hindi film about the 1993 Bombay bombings, followed by No Smoking , Dev D and Gulaal...

's Dev.D (2009) and Gulaal
Gulaal
Gulaal is a 2009 Indian film directed by Anurag Kashyap and starring Kay Kay Menon, Raj Singh Chaudhary, Abhimanyu Singh, Deepak Dobriyal, Ayesha Mohan, Jesse Randhawa, Piyush Mishra and Aditya Srivastava. The film explores themes such as pursuit of power, quest for legitimacy, perceived...

(2009) Piyush Jha
Piyush Jha
Piyush Jha is a film director and screenwriter of Indian origin, most known for his acclaimed films Sikandar , King of Bollywood and Chalo America.-Early life:...

's Sikandar
Sikandar
Sikandar is the Persian version of the name Alexander, after Alexander the Great. It is used as male first name in Middle East, Central Asia and South Asia...

(2009) and Vikramaditya Motwane's Udaan(2009) .

Independent films spoken in Indian English
Indian English
Indian English is an umbrella term used to describe dialects of the English language spoken primarily in the Republic of India.As a result of British colonial rule until Indian independence in 1947 English is an official language of India and is widely used in both spoken and literary contexts...

 are also occasionally produced; examples include Revathi
Revathi
Revathi is an award-winning Indian actress and film director. She has acted in Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu and Hindi movies, directed several feature-length films, and has acted in and produced multiple television programs, totaling over twenty years of experience in the entertainment...

's Mitr, My Friend
Mitr, My Friend
Mitr, My Friend is an Indian movie, directed by Indian actress Revathi. Set partly in India and the US, Mitr, My Friend was Revathi's debut directorial venture. The film was also noted for having an all-woman crew....

(2002), Aparna Sen
Aparna Sen
Aparna Sen is a critically acclaimed Bengali Indian filmmaker, script writer, and actress. She is the winner of three National Film Awards and eight international film festival awards.-Biography:...

's Mr. and Mrs. Iyer
Mr. and Mrs. Iyer
Mr. and Mrs. Iyer is a 2002 Indian drama film written and directed by Aparna Sen and produced by N. Venkatesan. The film features Aparna Sen's daughter Konkona Sen Sharma as Meenakshi Iyer, a Tamil Iyer Brahmin who is a Hindu. Rahul Bose portrays the character of Raja Chowdhury, a Muslim wildlife...

(2002) and 15 Park Avenue (2006), Anant Balani
Anant Balani
Anant Balani was a Bollywood film director and screenwriter.He directed films such as Patthar Ke Phool in 1991 which starred Salman Khan. He also wrote the script for Insaaf: The Justice , released in 2004....

's Joggers' Park (2003), Piyush Jha
Piyush Jha
Piyush Jha is a film director and screenwriter of Indian origin, most known for his acclaimed films Sikandar , King of Bollywood and Chalo America.-Early life:...

's King of Bollywood (2004), Homi Adajania
Homi Adajania
Homi Adajania is an Indian film director. His directorial debut Being Cyrus was an off-beat English-Language psychological drama film. Touted as one of the brilliant emerging directors coming from India, Homi Adajania was also the co-author of Being Cyrus, which was his debut as a director. He has...

's Being Cyrus
Being Cyrus
Being Cyrus is an English language Indian film directed by Homi Adajania and released in 2006. It is a psychological drama revolving around a dysfunctional Parsi family...

(2006), Rituparno Ghosh's The Last Lear
The Last Lear
The Last Lear is an Indian film, in the English language, directed by Rituparno Ghosh. The film won the National Award of India for Best Feature Film in English in 2007. The film stars Amitabh Bachchan, Preity Zinta, Arjun Rampal, Divya Dutta, Shefali Shah and Jisshu Sengupta. Shefali Shah won the...

(2007) and Sooni Taraporevala
Sooni Taraporevala
Sooni Taraporevala is an internationally acclaimed screenwriter and photographer, currently based in India. She is best known as the screenwriter of Mississippi Masala, The Namesake and Oscar-nominated Salaam Bombay , all directed by Mira Nair.She directed her first feature film, based on a...

's Little Zizou (2009).

Other Indian art film directors active today include Mrinal Sen
Mrinal Sen
Mrinal Sen is a Bengali Indian filmmaker. He was born on 14 May 1923, in the town of Faridpur, now in Bangladesh in a Hindu family. After finishing his high school there, he left home to come to Calcutta as a student and studied physics at the well-known Scottish Church College and at the...

, Buddhadeb Dasgupta
Buddhadeb Dasgupta
Buddhadeb Dasgupta is a poet and prominent contemporary Indian filmmaker, most known for films like Bagh Bahadur, Tahader Katha, Charachar and Uttara...

, Gautam Ghose
Gautam Ghose
Goutam Ghose is one of the most acclaimed film directors of modern India. Born in Calcutta. Graduated from Calcutta University....

, Sandip Ray
Sandip Ray
Sandip Ray is a film director living in the city of Kolkata, West Bengal, India. He is the only son of the noted Bengali director Satyajit Ray, and Bijoya Ray.-Career:...

 (Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray was an Indian Bengali filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema. Ray was born in the city of Kolkata into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature...

's son) and Rituparno Ghosh
Rituparno Ghosh
Rituparno Ghosh is a Bengali film director. He has won 8 National Film Awards in India and several awards at international film festivals abroad.- Early life and background :...

 in Bengali cinema
Bengali cinema
Bengali cinema refers to the Bengali language filmmaking industries in the Bengal region of South Asia. There are two major film-making hubs in the region: one in Kolkata, West Bengal, India and the other in Dhaka, Bangladesh .The history of cinema in Bengal dates back to the 1890s, when the first...

; Adoor Gopalakrishnan
Adoor Gopalakrishnan
Moutatthu "Adoor" Gopalakrishnan Unnithan is an Indian film director, script writer, and producer. Adoor Gopalakrishnan had a major role in revolutionizing Malayalam cinema and is regarded as one of the greatest filmmakers of India.. Adoor's first film Swayamvaram pioneered the new wave cinema...

, Shaji N. Karun
Shaji N. Karun
Shaji Neelakantan Karun is a National Award-winning Indian film director and cinematographer. His debut film Piravi won the Caméra d'Or - Mention d'honneur at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival...

 and T. V. Chandran
T. V. Chandran
T. V. Chandran is an Indian filmmaker, script writer, and actor. He is most known for his art-house films which have references to history and undertones of politics and feminism...

 in Malayalam cinema; Mani Kaul
Mani Kaul
Mani Kaul was an Indian film director of Hindi films. He graduated from the Film and Television Institute of India where he was a student of Ritwik Ghatak and later became a teacher. Started his career with Uski Roti , which won him the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Movie, he went on to win...

, Kumar Shahani
Kumar Shahani
Kumar Shahani is a noted Indian Film director, born in Larkana, Sindh , on 7 December 1940. After the Partition of India his family shifted to the city of Bombay...

, Ketan Mehta
Ketan Mehta
Ketan Mehta is an Indian film director, who has also directed documentaries and television serials.-Early life and education:Born in Navsari in Gujarat, Ketan Mehta did his schooling from Sardar Patel Vidyalaya, Delhi and later graduated in film direction from Film and Television Institute of...

, Govind Nihalani
Govind Nihalani
Govind Nihalani is an Indian director, cinematographer, and also a screenwriter and film producer. He has been directing Hindi films since the late seventies, and worked in the television medium.- Biography :...

 and Shyam Benegal
Shyam Benegal
Shyam Benegal is a prolific Indian director and screenwriter. With his first four feature films Ankur , Nishant Manthan and Bhumika he created a new genre, which has now come to be called the "middle cinema" in India although he himself has expressed dislike in the term preferring his work to...

  and Deepa Mehta
Deepa Mehta
Deepa Mehta, LLD is a Genie Award-winning Indian-born Canadian film director and screenwriter, most known for her Elements Trilogy, Fire , Earth , and Water , among which Earth was submitted by Indian government for Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film...

 in Hindi cinema; K. Viswanath in Telugu cinema
Telugu cinema
The Cinema of Andhra Pradesh, also referred to as Telugu Cinema or Tollywood, is the Telugu film industry in India. The Telugu language film industry is known for being one of the three largest in terms of no.of films produced yearly in India. The Prasads IMAX theatre in Hyderabad is one of the...

 and Mani Ratnam, Bala
Bala (director)
Bala is an Indian film director, screenwriter, and producer, working in Tamil cinema. Bala is frequently credited with having "revolutionized Tamil cinema", through his realistic, dark and disturbing films that have garnered high critical acclaim...

 and Kamal Haasan
Kamal Haasan
Kamal Haasan is an Indian film actor, screenwriter and director, considered to be one of the leading method actors of Indian cinema. He is widely acclaimed as an actor and is well known for his versatility in acting...

 in Tamil cinema
Tamil cinema
Tamil cinema is the film industry based in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, dedicated to the production of films in the Tamil language. It is based in Chennai's Kodambakkam district, where several South Indian film production companies are headquartered...

.

Global discourse

During the formative period of Indian parallel cinema in the 1940s and 1950s, the movement was influenced by Italian cinema
Cinema of Italy
The history of Italian cinema began just a few months after the Lumière brothers had patented their Cinematographe, when Pope Leo XIII was filmed for a few seconds in the act of blessing the camera.-Early years:...

 and French cinema
Cinema of France
The Cinema of France comprises the art of film and creative movies made within the nation of France or by French filmmakers abroad.France is the birthplace of cinema and was responsible for many of its early significant contributions. Several important cinematic movements, including the Nouvelle...

, particularly by Italian neorealism
Italian neorealism
Italian neorealism is a style of film characterized by stories set amongst the poor and working class, filmed on location, frequently using nonprofessional actors...

 as well as French poetic realism
Poetic realism
Poetic realism was a film movement in France of the 1930s and through the war years. More a tendency than a movement, Poetic Realism is not strongly unified like Soviet Montage or French Impressionism. Its leading filmmakers were Jean Renoir, Pierre Chenal, Jean Vigo, Julien Duvivier, and Marcel...

. Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray was an Indian Bengali filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema. Ray was born in the city of Kolkata into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature...

 particularly cited Italian filmmaker Vittorio De Sica
Vittorio de Sica
Vittorio De Sica was an Italian director and actor, a leading figure in the neorealist movement....

's Bicycle Thieves
Bicycle Thieves
Bicycle Thieves , also known as The Bicycle Thief, is a 1948 Italian neorealist film directed by Vittorio De Sica. It tells the story of a poor man searching the streets of Rome for his stolen bicycle, which he needs to be able to work. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Luigi...

(1948) and French filmmaker Jean Renoir
Jean Renoir
Jean Renoir was a French film director, screenwriter, actor, producer and author. As a film director and actor, he made more than forty films from the silent era to the end of the 1960s...

's The River
The River (1951 film)
The River is a 1951 film directed by Jean Renoir. It was filmed in India and was seminal to the launching of the careers of Satyajit Ray , who assisted on the film, and Subrata Mitra, Ray's cinematographer whom he met during the filming of The River.A fairly faithful dramatization of an earlier...

(1951), which he assisted, as influences on his debut film Pather Panchali (1955), alongside influences from Bengali literature
Bengali literature
Bengali literature is literary works written in Bengali language particularly from Bangladesh and the Indian provinces of West Bengal and Tripura. The history of Bengali literature traces back hundreds of years while it is impossible to separate the literary trends of the two Bengals during the...

 and classical Indian theatre. Bimal Roy
Bimal Roy
Bimal Roy was one of the most acclaimed Indian film directors of all time. He is particularly noted for his realistic and socialistic films like Do Bigha Zamin, Parineeta, Biraj Bahu, Madhumati, Sujata, and Bandini, making him an important director of Hindi cinema...

's Do Bigha Zamin (1953) was also influenced by De Sica's Bicycle Thieves. The Indian New Wave also began around the same time as the French New Wave
French New Wave
The New Wave was a blanket term coined by critics for a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced by Italian Neorealism and classical Hollywood cinema. Although never a formally organized movement, the New Wave filmmakers were linked by their self-conscious rejection of...

 and the Japanese New Wave.

Ever since Chetan Anand
Chetan Anand (producer & director)
Chetan Anand was an acclaimed Hindi film producer, screenwriter and director from India, whose debut film, Neecha Nagar, bagged the Palme d'Or award, at the Cannes Film Festival in 1946....

's Neecha Nagar
Neecha Nagar
Neecha Nagar is a 1946 Hindi film directed by Chetan Anand. Written by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, this film was a pioneering effort in social realism in Indian cinema, and paved the way for many such 'Parallel Cinema' films by other directors and many of them written by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas...

won the Grand Prize
Palme d'Or
The Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...

 at the inaugural Cannes Film Festival
1946 Cannes Film Festival
The 1st Cannes Film Festival was held from September 20 to October 5, 1946.- Jury :*Georges Huisman *Iris Barry *Beaulieu *Antonin Brousil *J.H.J...

 in 1946, Indian parallel cinema films frequently appeared in international fora and film festival
Film festival
A film festival is an organised, extended presentation of films in one or more movie theaters or screening venues, usually in a single locality. More and more often film festivals show part of their films to the public by adding outdoor movie screenings...

s for the next several decades. This allowed Indian independent filmmakers to reach a global audience. The most influential among them was Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray was an Indian Bengali filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema. Ray was born in the city of Kolkata into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature...

, whose films became successful among Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

an, American
Americas
The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...

 and Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

n audiences. His work subsequently had a worldwide impact, with filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...

, James Ivory
James Ivory (director)
James Francis Ivory is an American film director, best known for the results of his long collaboration with Merchant Ivory Productions, which included both Indian-born film producer Ismail Merchant, and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala...

, Abbas Kiarostami
Abbas Kiarostami
Abbas Kiarostami is an internationally acclaimed Iranian film director, screenwriter, photographer and film producer. An active filmmaker since 1970, Kiarostami has been involved in over forty films, including shorts and documentaries...

, Elia Kazan
Elia Kazan
Elia Kazan was an American director and actor, described by the New York Times as "one of the most honored and influential directors in Broadway and Hollywood history". Born in Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, to Greek parents originally from Kayseri in Anatolia, the family emigrated...

, François Truffaut
François Truffaut
François Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...

, Carlos Saura
Carlos Saura
Carlos Saura Atarés is a Spanish film director and photographer.-Early life:Born into a family of artists , he developed his artistic sense in childhood as a photography enthusiast.He obtained his directing diploma in Madrid in 1957 at the Institute of Cinema Research and Studies...

, Isao Takahata
Isao Takahata
is a Japanese anime filmmaker that have earned critical international acclaim for his work as a director. Takahata is co-founder of Studio Ghibli with long-time collaborative partner Hayao Miyazaki. He has directed films such as the war-themed Grave of the Fireflies, the romantic-drama Only...

 and Wes Anderson
Wes Anderson
Wesley Wales Anderson is an American film director, screenwriter, actor, and producer of features, short films and commercials....

 being influenced by his cinematic style, and many others such as Akira Kurosawa
Akira Kurosawa
was a Japanese film director, producer, screenwriter and editor. Regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema, Kurosawa directed 30 filmsIn 1946, Kurosawa co-directed, with Hideo Sekigawa and Kajiro Yamamoto, the feature Those Who Make Tomorrow ;...

 praising his work. The "youthful coming-of-age
Coming of age
Coming of age is a young person's transition from childhood to adulthood. The age at which this transition takes place varies in society, as does the nature of the transition. It can be a simple legal convention or can be part of a ritual, as practiced by many societies...

 dramas
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...

 that have flooded art houses since the mid-fifties owe a tremendous debt to the Apu trilogy" (1955–1959). Ray's film Kanchenjungha
Kanchenjungha
Kanchenjungha is a 1962 Bengali film by Bengali film director Satyajit Ray. It was Ray's first original screenplay and his first colour film....

(1962) introduced a narrative structure that resembles later hyperlink cinema
Hyperlink cinema
Hyperlink cinema is a term coined by author Alissa Quart, who used the term in her review of the film Happy Endings for the film journal Film Comment in 2005. Film critic Roger Ebert popularized the term when reviewing the film Syriana in 2005...

. Ray's 1967 script for a film to be called The Alien
The Alien
The Alien was an Indian-American science fiction film under production in the late 1960s which was eventually cancelled. It was being directed by the celebrated Indian director Satyajit Ray and co-produced by Hollywood studio Columbia Pictures. The script was written by Ray in 1967, loosely based...

, which was eventually cancelled, is widely believed to have been the inspiration for Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...

's E.T.
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is a 1982 American science fiction film co-produced and directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Melissa Mathison and starring Henry Thomas, Dee Wallace, Robert MacNaughton, Drew Barrymore, and Peter Coyote...

(1982). Ira Sachs
Ira Sachs
Ira Sachs is an American filmmaker. His first film was the acclaimed short Lady .He directed Sundance Film Festival selection The Delta and directed Sundance Film Festival Grand Prize winning Forty Shades of Blue...

' Forty Shades of Blue
Forty Shades of Blue
Forty Shades of Blue is a 2005 independent film directed by Ira Sachs. It tells the story of Alan James , an aging music producer who lives in Memphis, Tennessee with his much younger Russian girlfriend, Laura . Their life together is complicated by the presence of Alan's adult son Michael Forty...

(2005) was a loose remake of Charulata
Charulata
Charulata is a 1964 film by Bengali director Satyajit Ray, based upon the novella Nastanirh by Rabindranath Tagore...

, and in Gregory Nava
Gregory Nava
Gregory Nava is a film director, producer and screenplay writer, of Mexican and Basque heritage.-Education:...

's My Family
My Family (film)
My Family is an American drama film directed by Gregory Nava and written by Nava and Anna Thomas. The motion picture stars Jimmy Smits, Edward James Olmos, Esai Morales, and others. It also features Jennifer Lopez in her second film role....

(1995), the final scene is duplicated from the final scene of The World of Apu (1959). Similar references to Ray films are found in recent works such as Sacred Evil
Sacred Evil
Sacred Evil is an Indian supernatural/surreal film directed by Abhigyan Jha and Abhiyan Rajhans. It was released in 2006.Sacred Evil is about duality. It explores the premise that reality always has two sides...

(2006), the Elements trilogy
Elements trilogy
The Elements trilogy is a trilogy of films by Indian film-maker Deepa Mehta, dealing with controversial issues of social reform on the Indian subcontinent. Fire, the first release in 1996, dealt with issues of arranged marriage and homosexuality in the patriarchal culture of India...

of Deepa Mehta
Deepa Mehta
Deepa Mehta, LLD is a Genie Award-winning Indian-born Canadian film director and screenwriter, most known for her Elements Trilogy, Fire , Earth , and Water , among which Earth was submitted by Indian government for Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film...

, and in films of Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....

.

Another prominent filmmaker is Mrinal Sen
Mrinal Sen
Mrinal Sen is a Bengali Indian filmmaker. He was born on 14 May 1923, in the town of Faridpur, now in Bangladesh in a Hindu family. After finishing his high school there, he left home to come to Calcutta as a student and studied physics at the well-known Scottish Church College and at the...

, whose films have been well known for their Marxist
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...

 views. During his career, Mrinal Sen’s film have received awards from almost all major film festivals, including Cannes
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...

, Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

, Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

, Karlovy Vary
Karlovy Vary
Karlovy Vary is a spa city situated in western Bohemia, Czech Republic, on the confluence of the rivers Ohře and Teplá, approximately west of Prague . It is named after King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, who founded the city in 1370...

, Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

, Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, and Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...

. Retrospectives of his films have been shown in almost all major cities of the world.

Another Bengali independent filmmaker, Ritwik Ghatak, began reaching a global audience long after his death; beginning in the 1990s, a project to restore Ghatak's films was undertaken, and international exhibitions (and subsequent DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 releases) have belatedly generated an increasingly global audience. Alongside Ray's films, Ghatak's films have also appeared in several all-time greatest film polls. A number of Satyajit Ray films appeared in the Sight & Sound
Sight & Sound
Sight & Sound is a British monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute .Sight & Sound was first published in 1932 and in 1934 management of the magazine was handed to the nascent BFI, which still publishes the magazine today...

Critics' Poll, including The Apu Trilogy (ranked #4 in 1992 if votes are combined), The Music Room
Jalsaghar
Jalsaghar is the fourth feature film directed by Satyajit Ray. Jalsaghar is a narration of the end days of a Zamindar in Bengal. The landlord, Roy , is a just but other-worldly man who loves to spend time listening to music and putting up spectacles rather than managing his fields ravaged by...

(ranked #27 in 1992), Charulata
Charulata
Charulata is a 1964 film by Bengali director Satyajit Ray, based upon the novella Nastanirh by Rabindranath Tagore...

(ranked #41 in 1992) and Days and Nights in the Forest
Aranyer Din Ratri
Aranyer Din Ratri , is an Indian Bengali film released in 1970 and directed by Satyajit Ray. It is based upon the Bengali novel of the same name by Sunil Gangopadhyay. It was one of the earliest films to employ the literary technique of the carnivalesque...

(ranked #81 in 1982). The 2002 Sight & Sound critics' and directors' poll also included the Guru Dutt
Guru Dutt
Vasanth Kumar Shivashankar Padukone , popularly known as Guru Dutt, was an Indian film director, producer and actor. He is often credited with ushering in the golden era of Hindi cinema...

 films Pyaasa
Pyaasa
Pyaasa is a 1957 Indian film produced and directed by Guru Dutt. The film tells the story of struggling poet, Vijay , trying to make his works known in post-independence India...

and Kaagaz Ke Phool
Kaagaz Ke Phool
Kaagaz Ke Phool, , is a 1959 Hindi film produced and directed by Guru Dutt, who also played the lead role in the film .The film was a box office disaster of its time but was later resurrected as a world cinema cult classic in the 1980s. The film's music was composed by S. D...

(both tied at #160), and the Ritwik Ghatak films Meghe Dhaka Tara
Meghe Dhaka Tara
Meghe Dhaka Tara is a 1960 film by written and director Ritwik Ghatak, based on a novel Shaktipada Rajguru. It stars Supriya Choudhury, Anil Chatterjee, Gita Dey, Bijan Bhattacharya, Niranjan Roy, and Gyanesh Mukherjee...

(ranked #231) and Komal Gandhar (ranked #346). In 1998, the critics' poll conducted by the Asian film
Asian cinema
Asian cinema refers to the film industries and films produced in the continent of Asia, and is also sometimes known as Eastern cinema. More commonly however, it is used to refer to the cinema of Eastern, Southeastern and Southern Asia. West Asian cinema is sometimes classified as part of Middle...

 magazine Cinemaya
Cinemaya
Cinemaya is an influential film magazine established in 1988 devoted exclusively to coverage of Asian film. It is published in New Delhi, India and distributed internationally. The present editor-in-chief of Cinemaya is Aruna Vasudev, noted film journalist...

included The Apu Trilogy (ranked #1 if votes are combined), Ray's Charulata
Charulata
Charulata is a 1964 film by Bengali director Satyajit Ray, based upon the novella Nastanirh by Rabindranath Tagore...

and The Music Room
Jalsaghar
Jalsaghar is the fourth feature film directed by Satyajit Ray. Jalsaghar is a narration of the end days of a Zamindar in Bengal. The landlord, Roy , is a just but other-worldly man who loves to spend time listening to music and putting up spectacles rather than managing his fields ravaged by...

(both tied at #11), and Ghatak's Subarnarekha
Subarnarekha (film)
Subarnarekha is an Indian Bengali film directed by Ritwik Ghatak. It was produced in 1962 but was not released until 1965. It was part of the trilogy, Meghe Dhaka Tara , Komal Gandhar , and Subarnarekha , all dealing with the aftermath of the Partition of India in 1947 and the refugees coping with...

(also tied at #11). In 1999, The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...

top 250 "Best Film of the Century" critics' poll also included The Apu Trilogy (ranked #5 if votes are combined). The Apu Trilogy, Pyaasa and Mani Ratnam
Mani Ratnam
Mani Ratnam is an Indian filmmaker, screenwriter and producer. He made his directorial debut with the Kannada film Pallavi Anu Pallavi starring Anil Kapoor in 1983...

's Nayagan
Nayagan
Nayagan is a Indian film, written, directed, and co-produced by Mani Ratnam which released on 21 October 1987 coinciding with Diwali. Upon release, the film got rave reviews across India. Kamal Hassan's performance as Velu Naiker earned him a National Film Award for Best Actor. The film also...

were also included in Time magazine's "All-TIME" 100 best movies list in 2005. In 1992, the Sight & Sound Critics' Poll ranked Ray at #7 in its list of "Top 10 Directors" of all time, while Dutt was ranked #73 in the 2002 Sight & Sound greatest directors poll.

The cinematographer Subrata Mitra
Subrata Mitra
Subrata Mitra was an Indian cinematographer. Acclaimed for his work in The Apu Trilogy , Mitra is often considered one of the greatest of Indian cinematographers....

, who made his debut with Ray's The Apu Trilogy, also had an importance influence on cinematography
Cinematography
Cinematography is the making of lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for cinema. It is closely related to the art of still photography...

 across the world. One of his most important techniques was bounce lighting, to recreate the effect of daylight on sets. He pioneered the technique while filming Aparajito
Aparajito
Aparajito is a 1956 Bengali film directed by Satyajit Ray, and is the second part of The Apu Trilogy. It is adapted from the last one-fifth of Bibhutibhushan Bannerjee's novel Pather Panchali and the first one-third of its sequel Aparajito. It focuses on the life of Apu from childhood to college...

(1956), the second part of The Apu Trilogy. Some of the experimental techniques which Satyajit Ray pioneered include photo-negative
Negative (photography)
In photography, a negative may refer to three different things, although they are all related.-A negative:Film for 35 mm cameras comes in long narrow strips of chemical-coated plastic or cellulose acetate. As each image is captured by the camera onto the film strip, the film strip advances so that...

 flashback
Flashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...

s and X-ray
X-ray
X-radiation is a form of electromagnetic radiation. X-rays have a wavelength in the range of 0.01 to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 petahertz to 30 exahertz and energies in the range 120 eV to 120 keV. They are shorter in wavelength than UV rays and longer than gamma...

 digression
Digression
Digression is a section of a composition or speech that is an intentional change of subject. In Classical rhetoric since Corax of Syracuse, especially in Institutio Oratoria of Quintilian, the digression was a regular part of any oration or composition...

s while filming Pratidwandi
Pratidwandi
Pratidwandi or Pratidandi is a 1971 Indian Bengali film directed by Satyajit Ray based on the novel by Sunil Gangopadhyay. It is the first part of the Calcutta trilogy...

(1972).

Directors

frederick pangilinan
  • Khwaja Ahmad Abbas
    Khwaja Ahmad Abbas
    Khwaja Ahmad Abbas , popularly known as K. A. Abbas, was an Indian film director, novelist, screenwriter, and a journalist in the Urdu, Hindi and English languages...

  • Homi Adajania
    Homi Adajania
    Homi Adajania is an Indian film director. His directorial debut Being Cyrus was an off-beat English-Language psychological drama film. Touted as one of the brilliant emerging directors coming from India, Homi Adajania was also the co-author of Being Cyrus, which was his debut as a director. He has...

  • Chetan Anand
    Chetan Anand (producer & director)
    Chetan Anand was an acclaimed Hindi film producer, screenwriter and director from India, whose debut film, Neecha Nagar, bagged the Palme d'Or award, at the Cannes Film Festival in 1946....

  • G Aravindan
  • Prakash Arora
  • K. Balachander
    K. Balachander
    K. Balachander is an Indian film director, screenwriter and producer. Balachander is known for his distinct film-making style. His films analyse unusual or complicated interpersonal relationships and social themes. He has directed nearly 80 films and has worked in 100 films either as director or...

  • Shantaram Athavale
  • Sohail Azam
  • Anant Balani
    Anant Balani
    Anant Balani was a Bollywood film director and screenwriter.He directed films such as Patthar Ke Phool in 1991 which starred Salman Khan. He also wrote the script for Insaaf: The Justice , released in 2004....

  • Bhabendra Nath Saikia
    Bhabendra Nath Saikia
    Dr. Bhabendra Nath Saikia was a novelist, short story writer and film director from Assam. He had a PhD in Nuclear Physics from the University of London and later taught at Gauhati University. He won many literary awards, including Sahitya Academy , and was also recognised with the Padma...

  • Jahnu Barua
    Jahnu Barua
    Jahnu Barua is a multiple national and international award-winning Indian film director from Assam. He has directed a number of Assamese and Hindi films, and along with Bhabendra Nath Saikia was one of the pioneers of Assamese Art cinema...

  • Shyam Benegal
    Shyam Benegal
    Shyam Benegal is a prolific Indian director and screenwriter. With his first four feature films Ankur , Nishant Manthan and Bhumika he created a new genre, which has now come to be called the "middle cinema" in India although he himself has expressed dislike in the term preferring his work to...

  • Moni Bhattacharjee
    Moni Bhattacharjee
    Moni Bhattacharjee was an Indian film director and screenwriter of late nineties who directed few known and popular Hindi movies...

  • T. V. Chandran
    T. V. Chandran
    T. V. Chandran is an Indian filmmaker, script writer, and actor. He is most known for his art-house films which have references to history and undertones of politics and feminism...

  • Nandita Das
    Nandita Das
    Nandita Das is an award-winning Indian film actress and director. As an actress, she is known for her performances in Fire , Earth , Bawandar , Kannathil Muthamittal and Aamaar Bhuvan . As a director, she is known for her directorial debut Firaaq , which has won a number of national and...

  • Buddhadeb Dasgupta
    Buddhadeb Dasgupta
    Buddhadeb Dasgupta is a poet and prominent contemporary Indian filmmaker, most known for films like Bagh Bahadur, Tahader Katha, Charachar and Uttara...

  • Guru Dutt
    Guru Dutt
    Vasanth Kumar Shivashankar Padukone , popularly known as Guru Dutt, was an Indian film director, producer and actor. He is often credited with ushering in the golden era of Hindi cinema...

  • Ritwik Ghatak
  • Gautam Ghose
    Gautam Ghose
    Goutam Ghose is one of the most acclaimed film directors of modern India. Born in Calcutta. Graduated from Calcutta University....

  • Rituparno Ghosh
    Rituparno Ghosh
    Rituparno Ghosh is a Bengali film director. He has won 8 National Film Awards in India and several awards at international film festivals abroad.- Early life and background :...

  • Adoor Gopalakrishnan
    Adoor Gopalakrishnan
    Moutatthu "Adoor" Gopalakrishnan Unnithan is an Indian film director, script writer, and producer. Adoor Gopalakrishnan had a major role in revolutionizing Malayalam cinema and is regarded as one of the greatest filmmakers of India.. Adoor's first film Swayamvaram pioneered the new wave cinema...

  • Saeed Akhtar Mirza
    Saeed Akhtar Mirza
    Saeed Akhtar Mirza is an Indian screenwriter and director in Hindi films and television. He is the maker of important Parallel cinema films like Mohan Joshi Hazir Ho! , Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyon Ata Hai , Salim Langde Pe Mat Ro and Naseem , which won two National Film Awards in 1996.He is...

  • Sonali Gulati
    Sonali Gulati
    Sonali Gulati is an award-winning filmmaker and Professor in Virginia Commonwealth University’s Department of Photography & Film.Gulati is originally from New Delhi, India . She received her B.A. in Critical Social Thought from Mount Holyoke College in 1996 and M.F.A. in Film & Media Arts from...

  • Bala
    Bala (director)
    Bala is an Indian film director, screenwriter, and producer, working in Tamil cinema. Bala is frequently credited with having "revolutionized Tamil cinema", through his realistic, dark and disturbing films that have garnered high critical acclaim...


  • Kamal Haasan
    Kamal Haasan
    Kamal Haasan is an Indian film actor, screenwriter and director, considered to be one of the leading method actors of Indian cinema. He is widely acclaimed as an actor and is well known for his versatility in acting...

  • M. F. Husain
  • Manish Jha
    Manish Jha
    Manish Jha is an Indian film director and screenwriter, most known for his films, A Very Very Silent Film and Matrubhoomi-A Nation Without Women which won him critical acclaim.-Early life and education:...

  • Piyush Jha
    Piyush Jha
    Piyush Jha is a film director and screenwriter of Indian origin, most known for his acclaimed films Sikandar , King of Bollywood and Chalo America.-Early life:...

  • Prakash Jha
    Prakash Jha
    Prakash Jha is an Indian film producer-director-screenwriter, who is most known for his political and socio-political films such as Damul , Mrityudand , Gangaajal , Apaharan and multistarrer hit movie Raajneeti...

  • Mithaq Kazimi
    Mithaq Kazimi
    Mithaq Kazimi is a film director and producer, mostly known for his documentary film 16 Days in Afghanistan and founding member of Dawn Breakers International Film Festival...

  • Nishikanth Kamath
  • Shaji N. Karun
    Shaji N. Karun
    Shaji Neelakantan Karun is a National Award-winning Indian film director and cinematographer. His debut film Piravi won the Caméra d'Or - Mention d'honneur at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival...

  • Girish Kasaravalli
    Girish Kasaravalli
    Girish Kasaravalli is a noted film director, and one of the pioneers of the Parallel Cinema in Kannada cinema, who has won the National Film Award for Best Film four times, Ghatashraddha , Tabarana Kathe , Thaayi Saheba and Dweepa...

  • Mani Kaul
    Mani Kaul
    Mani Kaul was an Indian film director of Hindi films. He graduated from the Film and Television Institute of India where he was a student of Ritwik Ghatak and later became a teacher. Started his career with Uski Roti , which won him the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Movie, he went on to win...

  • Jahar Kanungo
  • Rajbans Khanna
  • Nagesh Kukunoor
    Nagesh Kukunoor
    Nagesh Kukunoor is an Indian filmmaker and screenwriter. He is known for movies such as Hyderabad Blues , Rockford , 3 Deewarein and Iqbal .-Early life:...

  • Kalpana Lajmi
  • Deepa Mehta
    Deepa Mehta
    Deepa Mehta, LLD is a Genie Award-winning Indian-born Canadian film director and screenwriter, most known for her Elements Trilogy, Fire , Earth , and Water , among which Earth was submitted by Indian government for Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film...

  • Ketan Mehta
    Ketan Mehta
    Ketan Mehta is an Indian film director, who has also directed documentaries and television serials.-Early life and education:Born in Navsari in Gujarat, Ketan Mehta did his schooling from Sardar Patel Vidyalaya, Delhi and later graduated in film direction from Film and Television Institute of...

  • Sudhir Mishra
    Sudhir Mishra
    Sudhir Mishra is an Indian film director and screenwriter most renowned for directing critically acclaimed films like Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, Dharavi and Chameli.-Early life and education:...

  • Sombhu Mitra
    Sombhu Mitra
    Sombhu Mitra was an Indian film and stage actor, director, playwright and one of the pre-eminent Indian theatre personalities, especially Bengali theatre, where he is considered a pioneer. He remained associated with Indian People’s Theatre Association for a few years before founding Bohurupree...

  • Pan Nalin
    Pan Nalin
    Pan Nalin is an Indian film director, screenwriter and documentary maker. Nalin is best known for directing award-winning films like Samsara, Valley of Flowers, and Ayurveda: Art of Being. His debut film, Samsara went on to win awards like "Grand Jury Prize - Special Mention" at AFI Fest and "Most...

  • Mira Nair
    Mira Nair
    Mira Nair is an Indian film director and producer based in New York. Her production company is Mirabai Films.She was educated at Delhi University and Harvard University. Her debut feature film, Salaam Bombay! , won the Golden Camera award at the Cannes Film Festival and also earned the nomination...

  • Murali Nair
  • Govind Nihalani
    Govind Nihalani
    Govind Nihalani is an Indian director, cinematographer, and also a screenwriter and film producer. He has been directing Hindi films since the late seventies, and worked in the television medium.- Biography :...

  • Dasari Narayana Rao
    Dasari Narayana Rao
    Dr. Dasari Narayana Rao B.A. is a politician, film director, and film producer. Narayana Rao directed about 150 films, produced 53 films and worked in more than 250 films as a dialogue writer and as a lyricist.Beside graduating with a BA degree, he used to take part in scores of drama competitions...

  • Singeetam Srinivasa Rao
  • Jabbar Patel
    Jabbar Patel
    Dr. Jabbar Patel is a theatre and film director of India. His production of the play Vijay Tendulkar's play Ghashiram Kotwal, in 1973 is considered a classic in Modern Indian Theatre....


  • Dadasaheb Phalke
    Dadasaheb Phalke
    Dhundiraj Govind Phalke, popularly known as Dadasaheb Phalke was an Indian producer-director-screenwriter, known as the father of Indian cinema...

  • Sridhar Rangayan
    Sridhar Rangayan
    Sridhar Rangayan ) is an Indian filmmaker who has made films with special focus on queer subjects. His queer films, The Pink Mirror and Yours Emotionally, have been considered groundbreaking because of their realistic and sympathetic portrayal of the largely closeted Indian gay community...

  • Gitanjali Rao
  • Kiran Rao
    Kiran Rao
    Kiran Rao is an Indian film producer, screenwriter, and director.-Early life:Rao was born in Bangalore into a Konkani family on November 7, 1973. She was raised in Calcutta where she attended Loreto House and La Martiniere Calcutta. In 1992, her parents decided to leave Calcutta so she shifted to...

  • Sandip Ray
    Sandip Ray
    Sandip Ray is a film director living in the city of Kolkata, West Bengal, India. He is the only son of the noted Bengali director Satyajit Ray, and Bijoya Ray.-Career:...

  • Satyajit Ray
    Satyajit Ray
    Satyajit Ray was an Indian Bengali filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema. Ray was born in the city of Kolkata into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature...

  • Revathi
    Revathi
    Revathi is an award-winning Indian actress and film director. She has acted in Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu and Hindi movies, directed several feature-length films, and has acted in and produced multiple television programs, totaling over twenty years of experience in the entertainment...

  • Bimal Roy
    Bimal Roy
    Bimal Roy was one of the most acclaimed Indian film directors of all time. He is particularly noted for his realistic and socialistic films like Do Bigha Zamin, Parineeta, Biraj Bahu, Madhumati, Sujata, and Bandini, making him an important director of Hindi cinema...

  • Kishore Sahu
    Kishore Sahu
    Kishore Sahu was an Indian actor, film director, screenwriter and producer. He appeared in 22 films between 1937 and 1980.-Filmography:Actor:* Vakil Babu .... Justice Rajvansh...

  • M. S. Sathyu
    M. S. Sathyu
    Mysore Shrinivas Sathyu is a leading film director, stage designer and art director from India. His film Garam Hawa is a film on the partition of India. He is a recipient of the Padma Shri in 1975.-Early life:Sathyu conducted his schooling and higher education at Mysore and Bangalore...

  • Aparna Sen
    Aparna Sen
    Aparna Sen is a critically acclaimed Bengali Indian filmmaker, script writer, and actress. She is the winner of three National Film Awards and eight international film festival awards.-Biography:...

  • Mrinal Sen
    Mrinal Sen
    Mrinal Sen is a Bengali Indian filmmaker. He was born on 14 May 1923, in the town of Faridpur, now in Bangladesh in a Hindu family. After finishing his high school there, he left home to come to Calcutta as a student and studied physics at the well-known Scottish Church College and at the...

  • Partho Sen-Gupta
    Partho Sen-Gupta
    Partho Sen-Gupta is an independent film director and screenwriter of Indian origin.-Biography:Born in Mumbai , on 2 September 1965...

  • Kumar Shahani
    Kumar Shahani
    Kumar Shahani is a noted Indian Film director, born in Larkana, Sindh , on 7 December 1940. After the Partition of India his family shifted to the city of Bombay...

  • V. Shantaram
    V. Shantaram
    V. Shantaram is a renowned Indian filmmaker, film producer and actor. He is most known for his films like Dr...

  • Santosh Sivan
    Santosh Sivan
    Santosh Sivan is an Indian cinematographer, film director, and producer who has worked in Malayalam, Kannada, Tamil, and Hindi cinema....

  • Narendra Suri
  • Sooni Taraporevala
    Sooni Taraporevala
    Sooni Taraporevala is an internationally acclaimed screenwriter and photographer, currently based in India. She is best known as the screenwriter of Mississippi Masala, The Namesake and Oscar-nominated Salaam Bombay , all directed by Mira Nair.She directed her first feature film, based on a...

  • Biju Viswanath
    Biju Viswanath
    Biju Viswanath is an Award-winning international Film Director and Director of Photography.Viswanath works in a wide range of genres: Thriller, Mystery, Horror and Romance...

  • K. Viswanath
  • Priyanandanan
    Priyanandanan
    Priyanandanan is a film and drama director from Kerala, India. His second movie Pulijanmam bagged the National Film Award for Best Film in 2007.-Biography:...


External links

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