Shyam Benegal passes away at 90

Mumbai, Dec 23 Veteran filmmaker Shyam Benegal, who pioneered the parallel film movement in India, passed away in Mumbai on Monday.

The filmmaker was suffering from a kidney ailment for a while, and was admitted to Wockhardt hospital in Mumbai.

His funeral will be held in Mumbai at 10:00 am on Tuesday.

Shyam Benegal is widely considered as one of the greatest filmmakers after the 1970s, and received several honours like 18 National Film Awards, a Nandi Award, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, India's highest award in the field of cinema, a Padma Shri, and Padma Bhushan.

The filmmaker recently celebrated his 90th birthday in Mumbai.

He was born in Hyderabad to Sridhar B. Benegal who was prominent in the field of photography. He was the second cousin of the legendary Indian auteur Guru Dutt.

Shyam Benegal started his career as a copywriter, and made his first Documentary film in Gujarati, ‘Gher Betha Ganga’ in 1962. His first four feature films ‘Ankur’ (1973), ‘Nishant’ (1975), ‘Manthan’ (1976) and ‘Bhumika’ (1977) made him a pioneer of the new wave film movement of that period.

He also served as the Director of the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) from 1980 to 1986.

His film ‘Mandi’ (1983), is known for its satire on politics and prostitution. The film starred Shabana Azmi and Smita Patil. Later, working from his own story, based on the last days of Portuguese in Goa, in the early 1960s, Shyam explored human relationships in ‘Trikal’.

The filmmaker was known for his evolution. When the Hindi cinema entered a period of lull in the 1980s with even the mainstream films struggling at the box-office after the introduction of VCR, the fundings for the parallel films were considerably cut-down. Many filmmakers of the parallel film movement couldn’t make movies in the absence of funds. However, Shyam Benegal turned to the new medium of television. His show ‘Bharat Ek Khoj’ is considered to be one of the iconic shows of India.