ANURAG KASHYAP
8:51 PMIndia Film Project
Due to
Kashyap's desire to become a scientist, he went to Delhi for his higher studies
to study zoology at the Hansraj College. During his college days, he started watching films again
and also got involved with drugs and alcohol. He was confused and depressed and
had joined a street theater group, Jana
Natya Manch; he ended up doing a lot of street plays. The
same year, a couple of friends introduced him to world cinema; they "urged
him to catch a de Sica retrospective" at the International Film Festival of India. In ten
days, he saw 55 films at the festival, and
de Sica's Bicycle Thieves was the film that influenced him the most.
It was
then he landed in Mumbai with a prospect in making a career in the film
industry. He struggled for some time sleeping on streets, on the beaches and in
the boy’s hostel of St Xavier’s college. He joined the Prithvi Theatre and
Makrand Deshpande’s theatre group but all he met was failure. He overcame
this period of frustration and depression when his written drama “Main” did
pretty well at college festivals and he was admired for his work. Thus he came
across Govind Nilhani and Saeed Mirza. But nothing worked out of it.
Kashyap
got his first major break when actor Manoj
Bajpai,showed Auto
Narayan, scripted by Anurag Kashyap, to producer-director Ramgopal
Varma. Varma liked Kashyap's work and hired him to
write the script for Satya.Satya was a commercial and critical success.
He also wrote the dialogues for Mani Ratnam's Yuva (2004).
Kashyap made his directorial debut with Paanch, with Kay Kay Menon as the lead in 2000. Kashyap
made his directorial debut with Paanch, with Kay Kay Menon as the lead in 2000. However,
the film ran into trouble with the Indian Censor Board. However it was later released in 2011.
In
2007, he adapted Stephen
King's 1978 short story "Quitters,
Inc." as No
Smoking, which despite being received well by critics,
didn't do well at the box-office.This was followed by Return of Hanuman (previously Hanuman Returns) a Hindi
animation film.
Then,
in 2009, came Dev.D. Written and directed by him, Dev.D was
embraced by the media, critics and public alike, and is considered to be
amongst path-breaking films in Hindi for the way it presented itself.
He also
donned the role of producer with some significant fims like Aamir (2008),
Shaitan (2011), Udaan(2010), That Girl in Yellow Boots (2010), Shor (2011), Michael
(2011) and Gangs Of Wasseypur (2012).
In 2012
he also produced a music album called SATAN which features famous singer Yo Yo
Honey Singh with whom he has worked earlier for his production Luv Shuv Tey
Chicken Khurana. His film Ugly was screened in the Directors' Fortnight section at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.
He was listed on the The DNA power
list: Top 50 influentials, a list of 50 most influential Indians in 2011.
He is one of the most influential and important directors in India.
