Filmmaker Shyam Benegal: Final Episode
By kamla bhatt • Apr 16th, 2006Category: Bollywood, Books and Authors, Entertainment, Hyderabad, India, Mumbai, People
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In our final segment Mr. Shyam Benegal talks about his cousin Guru Dutt
In 1950 when Guru Dutt’s first film became a success Mr. Benegal says, “Guru Dutt made it big.” Mr. Benegal was in high school at this time. “Suddenly he had become this enormous figure in my eyes…and I said that is what I want.” Mr. Benegal wanted to make different kinds of film and not the grand romantic films that his cousin directed and starred. He points out this cousin’s films were young people’s films with young people’s sensibilities. Tragically his cousin died very young. He was only 39 years old.
Mr. Benegal says Satyajit Ray
Mr. Benegal concludes our conversation by discussing the changing India and how this is influencing his story-telling. He dismisses any ideas of retiring and laughingly admits, ” I am very jealous (of the new films) because I am not keeping up.” He has two projects in the pipeline: Chamki based on Prosper Merimee ’s Carmen, and a second project that is based on a 21st century Indian village.
Mr. Benegal made his first feature film Ankur in 1973. Everybody in the film was a newcomer, except for the camera person Govind Nihalani.
After the success of Ankur, Mr. Benegal went on to make films like Mandi, Nishant, Bhumika
Mr. Benegal introduced many talented actors like Shabana Azmi, Anant Nag, Smita Patil, and Naseerudin Shah among others to the Indian film industry.
Besides feature films, Mr. Benegal has made TV documentaries and one of his best-known series is Bharat:Ek Khoj, based on Jawaharlal Nehru’s Discovery of India
A prolific film-maker, Mr. Benegal has no plans to retire and is busy with his next project called Chamki.
Kamla Bhatt is the host and producer of an Internet Radio show where listeners can find stories about the new and emerging India and the global Indian community. As a pioneer of 'internet radio' format in India Kamla started her first show News about India, followed by TalkNewsIndia in 2005. In 2006 she premiered her new show: The Kamla Bhatt Show: Life, People and Ideas. 
[...] In hindsight one can unravel the political, economic and social pieces and arrange them in neat little silos and notice a nice little, predictable pattern. But, life is not like that…it is a great big cauldron with all kinds of ingredients that are constantly thrown into it. That 1970s cauldron has its own set of flavors and masala that color our memories. Where I think we can sense and see this turmoil of the lost generation is in the films made in the 1970s whether it was in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada or Bengali. The 1970s was a period of great fecundity in the history of Indian cinema. It is important to point out here that technologically speaking the Indian film industry worked with really old and antiquated equipment to make their films. The 1970s also saw the birth of parallel cinema and directors like Shyam Benegal and Govind Nihalani. In sharp contrast, the 1960s saw the rise of romantic cinema, where everybody lived happily ever after in the movie. [...]
[...] Indian filmmaker Shyam Benegal is currently working on a script on Noor Inayat Khan, based on Shrabani’s [...]
i cant wait to see spy princess as a film or mini series
i hope whoever plays noor inayyat khan does justice to her character
ms. basu has written and researched for this wonderful book that i have read it three times i highly reccomend it…
for us asians noor innayat was one of the most important and brave women in subcontinental history
pls mr shyam bengal hurry up and finish your film ! good luck