Shyam Benegal

Shyam Benegal श्याम बेनेगल
Shyam Benegal at his office in Mumbai.
Born	(1934-12-14) 14 December 1934 (age 82) Tirumalagiri, Hyderabad State, British Raj (now Telangana, India)
Occupation	Film director, Screenwriter
Spouse(s)	Nira Benegal
Children	Pia
Awards	1976 Padma Shri 1991 Padma Bhushan 2005 Dadasaheb Phalke Award 2013 ANR National Award

Shyam Benegal (born 14 December 1934) is an Indian director and screenwriter. With his first four feature films Ankur (1973), Nishant (1975), Manthan (1976) and Bhumika (1977) he created a new genre, which has now come to be called the "middle cinema" in India. He has expressed dislike of the term, preferring his work to be called New or Alternate cinema.

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

Shyam Benegal, was born on 14 December 1934 in Trimulgherry,Secunderabad, then a British Cantonment, and now a twin city of the state capital, as Shyam Sunder Benegal. It was here, at age twelve, that he made his first film, on a camera given to him by his photographer father, Sridhar B. Benegal. He received an M.A. in Economics from Osmania University, Hyderabad. There he formed the Hyderabad Film Society.

Famous film director and actor Guru Dutt's maternal grandmother and Shyam's paternal grandmother were sisters.

In 1959, he started working as a copywriter at a Bombay-based advertising agency, Lintas Advertising, where he steadily rose to become a creative head. Meanwhile, Benegal made his first documentary in Gujarati, Gher Betha Ganga (Ganges at Doorstep) in 1962. His first feature film had to wait another decade while he worked on the script.