Legendary filmmaker Shyam Benegal passes away
The filmmaker passed away at Mumbai's Wockhardt Hospital due to chronic kidney disease
Hyderabad: Veteran filmmaker Shyam Benegal, who pioneered the parallel film movement in India, passed away in Mumbai on Monday, his daughter Pia said. He was 90.
He had celebrated his 90th birthday just 10 days ago, on December 14. The director said on the occasion that he had to frequently visit the hospital and was on dialysis. Benegal is survived by his wife Nira Benegal and daughter.
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 am on Tuesday.
“He passed away at 6.38 pm at Wockhardt Hospital Mumbai Central. He had been suffering from chronic kidney disease for several years but it had gotten very bad. That’s the reason for his death,” Pia said. Wockhardt Hospital sources said Benegal had been admitted in the ICU.
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 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’.
In his prolific career, Benegal made films on diverse issues, documentaries and television serials, including ‘Bharat Ek Khoj’ and ‘Samvidhaan’.
His films also include ‘Junoon’, ‘Mandi’, ‘Suraj Ka Satvaan Ghoda’, ‘Mammo’ and ‘Sardari Begum’, most counted as classics in Hindi cinema. The director’s most recent work was the 2023 biographical ‘Mujib: The Making of a Nation’.
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.
— Agencies
