Dev Benegal
| Dev Benegal | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
28 December 1960 New Delhi, India |
| Occupation | film director, screenwriter |
Dev Benegal (Konkani: देव बॅनॅगल) (born 28 December 1960) is an Indian director and screenwriter, most known for his debut film English, August (1994), which won the 1995 National Film Award for Best Feature Film in English.
Dev was born in Bombay to Som Benegal, a theatre director, and his wife Suman. He has one brother, Rahul. Som Benegal was the younger brother of Shyam Benegal, the noted film director, and a relative of Guru Dutt, the renowned film actor and director. Suman Benegal is the sister of Snehlata Sanyal, wife of B. C. Sanyal and mother of Amba Ravindran.
Dev Benegal grew up in New Delhi. In 1979, he left Delhi for Mumbai (then Bombay), to pursue a career in movies. He studied Cinematography for two years at the Film School of New York University in the late 1980s.
After serving as the assistant to his uncle, Shyam Benegal in films like Kalyug (1980), Mandi (1983) and his famous documentary on Satyajit Ray, Satyajit Ray, Filmmaker (1984), Dev Benegal directed a series of short short films, Kalpavriksha: The Tree of Life (1988), Kanakambaram: Cloth: of Gold (1987), and Anantarupam: The Infinite Forms (1987). He directed several documentaries, including Shabana! (2003) with Indian film star Shabana Azmi and Abhivardhan: Building for a New Life (1992). In 1994 he wrote and directed his adaptation of Upamanyu Chatterjee's 1989 novel by the same name, based on the Indian Administrative Service, English, August (1994). The film received praise from critics for its modern and urban themes and was hailed as the cinematic counterpart to the later Anglo-Indian literary movement. It also won the Best Feature Film in English Award at National Film Awards, and is now hailed as a landmark in contemporary Indian cinema as it ushered in a wave of independent Indian filmmakers, commonly known as "multiplex films" in India.
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