Veteran filmmaker, Padma Bhushan and Dadasaheb Phalke award winner Shyam Benegal, a pioneer of parallel cinema in India has died aged 90, after suffering from a chronic kidney disease. He will be remembered for his films like ‘Ankur’, ‘Nishant’, ‘Zubeidaa’, ‘Manthan’, ‘Mandi’ and ‘Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’.
Shyam Babu, as he was affectionately known in the film circles, breathed his last at the Wockhardt Hospital in Mumbai, just nine days after he celebrated his 90th birthday with his family and friends.
The legendary filmmaker is survived by his 85-year-old wife Nira Benegal, who has been into diverse fields of activities including films, literature, music architecture and design, and daughter Pia Benegal.
Shyam Benegal, who made significant contributions to India Cinema, introduced parallel cinema in the seventies. Rated at one stage next only to the all-time great Satyajit Ray as a filmmaker who made meaningful films, he made films like ‘Ankur’ (1973), ‘Nishant’ (1975), ‘Manthan’ (1976), ‘Bhumika’ (1977), ‘Mammo’ (1994), ‘Sardari Begum’ (1996), and ‘Zubeidaa’ (2001). He also made a children’s film Charandas Chor (Charandas the Thief) in 1975.
Born on December 14 1934 in a Konkani-speaking Chitrapur Saraswat Brahmin family in Hyderabad, Shyam made his first film at 12 years of age, using a camera given to him by his photographer father Sridhar B. Benegal
He went on to earn a Master’s degree in Economics from Osmania University, Hyderabad, where he also founded the Hyderabad Film Society.
Having begun his career as a copywriter with Mumbai-based advertising agency, Lintas Advertising, where he steadily rose to become the creative head. Meanwhile, Benegal made his first documentary in Gujarati, ‘Gher Betha Ganga’ (Ganges at the Doorstep) in 1962.
He also taught at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) between 1966 and 1973, and was the chairman of the FTII for two terms between 1980-83 and 1989-92. He began his career as a filmmaker by making documentaries. One of his early documentaries, ‘A Child of the Streets’ (1967), garnered him wide acclaim, and he went on to make over 70 documentaries. A versatile filmmaker, Shyam Bengal had made as many as 20 feature films during his illustrious career.
Known for spotting talent, Shyam Benegal introduced actors - many of whom from FTII and National School of Drama (NSD) - introduced actors like Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Anant Nag, Smita Patil, Shabana Azmi, Kulbhushan Kharbanda and Amrish Puri.
Benegal was honoured by the Government of India with the Padma Shri in 1976 and the Padma Bhushan in 1991. He has received several accolades, including eighteen National Film Awards, a Filmfare Award and a Nandi Award. In 2005, he was honoured with the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, India’s highest award in the field of cinema
Apart from making films for the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC), he also served as the Director of the NFDC from 1980 to 1986.
With the financial support of actor Shashi Kapoor, Shyam Benegal made commercial films like Junoon (1978) and Kalyug (1981).
Benegal wrote the scripts and screenplays for his films, and authored three books based on his own films: ‘The Churning with Vijay Tendulkar’ (1984), based on ‘Manthan’; ‘Satyajit Ray’ (1988), based on his biographical film, ‘Satyajit Ray’; and ‘The Marketplace’ (1989), which was based on ‘Mandi’.
