Filmmaker Shyam Benegal, a towering figure of New Indian Cinema who shaped the movement with films like Ankur (The Seedling, 1974), Nishant (Night's End, 1975), and Manthan (The Churning, 1976), passed away on Monday, December 23, 2024, his daughter Pia Benegal confirmed to India Today. He was 90 at the time of his passing.
Benegal began his career working as a copywriter for Lintas, a Mumbai-based advertising agency, in 1959 while also working on his own short films and documentaries. A prolific director, screenwriter, and documentary filmmaker, he produced over 900 ad films, 3 short films, 6 television series, 41 documentaries, and 24 feature films during his six-decades-long career. Ghar Betha Ganga (Ganges at the Doorstep), his first short film, was made in 1962.
In 1974, Benegal made his feature film debut as a director with Ankur, a landmark in Indian cinema for its grounded, realistic portrayal of life at the intersection of feudalism, casteism, patriarchy, and labour exploitation in rural India. Despite many delays and setbacks during pre-production, Ankur turned out to be a triumphant success. The film won three National Film Awards and 43 other prizes, both in India and abroad, and was nominated for the Golden Bear at the 24th Berlin International Film Festival in 1974.
“Cinema is a social medium, unlike the medium of painting. And because it is a social medium, somewhere along the line, a sense of social responsibility does creep into it.”Shyam Benegal
Ankur marked the beginning of Benegal's feature film career, as well as the beginning of his informal Uprising trilogy. While the revolt of the peasants simmers under the last vestiges of feudalism in Ankur, it erupts in Nishant and transforms into collective power in Manthan. India's first crowdfunded film, Manthan was funded entirely by 500,000 farmers of Gujarat who contributed 2 Rupees each towards the film's budget. Nishant and Manthan both won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi in 1976 and 1977 respectively.
Benegal's Uprising trilogy took New Indian Cinema outside its Bengali silo and made it a pan-India movement. Benegal followed up with Bhumika (1977), Junoon (1979), Kalyug (1981), Arohan (1982), and Mandi (1983). In recognition of his groundbreaking achievements and contributions to the realm of Indian cinema, Benegal was awarded the Padma Shri in 1976 and the Padma Bhushan — the third-highest civilian award in India — in 1991.
In 1988, Benegal took on the audacious task of adapting Jawaharlal Nehru's The Discovery of India (1946) for the television, and wrote, produced, and directed the 53-episode Bharat Ek Khoj (India: An Exploration) for the state-owned broadcast channel Doordarshan. The critically-acclaimed series covered a 5,000-year history of the Indian subcontinent from its early days to Independence and Partition in 1947.
In his later films like Mammo (1994), Sardari Begum (1996), Zubeidaa (2001), and Well Done Abba (2010), Benegal focused his directorial gaze on the lived experiences of Muslims — especially Muslim women — in India. Unlike the one-dimensional cardboard-cutout Muslim characters of mainstream Indian films, Benegal's Muslim characters were neither villains nor victims — they were simply flesh-and-blood individuals navigating the asymmetric power structures of Indian society.
Benegal received several national and international awards and prizes, including 18 National Film Awards over the years, and the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, India’s highest recognition in the field of cinema, in 2005. He is survived by his wife, Nira Benegal, his daughter Pia Benegal, and his masterful body of work.
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