Shyam Benegal: Renowned filmmaker cremated with state honours

Mangalore Today News Network

Mumbai, December 24, 2024: Renowned filmmaker Shyam Benegal died on Monday after days of suffering from a chronic kidney-related disease. The 90-year-old filmmaker died at around 6:30 pm at the Wockhardt Hospital in Mumbai, his daughter Pia Benegal confirmed.

The funeral was held at Mumbai’s Shivaji Park Electric Crematarium on Tuesday.

The veteran director celebrated his 90th birthday a few days ago in Mumbai with his family and close friends from the industry.

The filmmaker was known for his rich body of work, which broke away from the norms of traditional mainstream cinema. His films were marked by a degree of realism and social commentary, and helped in Indian parallel cinema movement in the 1970s and 1980s. He has won multiple National Awards for movies including Bhumika: The Role (1977), Junoon (1978), Arohan (1982), Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: The Forgotten Hero (2004), Manthan (1976), and Well Done Abba (2010).

Shyam Benegal was born on 14 December 1934 in a  Konkani-speaking, Chitrapur Saraswat Brahmin family in Hyderabad, as Shyam Sunder Benegal. His father Sridhar B. Benegal hailed from Benegal, near Udupi in Karnataka state. When he was twelve years old, he made his first film, on a camera given to him by his photographer father. He received an M.A. in Economics from Osmania University, Hyderabad. There he established the Hyderabad Film Society.

In 1959, he started working as a copywriter at a Mumbai-based advertising agency, Lintas Advertising, where he steadily rose to become the creative head. Meanwhile, Benegal made his first documentary in Gujarati, Gher Betha Ganga (Ganges at the Doorstep) in 1962. His first feature film had to wait another decade while he worked on the script. He received independent financing and Ankur (The Seedling) was finally made in 1973.

Between 1966 and 1973, Shyam taught at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune, and twice served as the institute’s chairman: 1980–83 and 1989–92. By this time he had already started making documentaries. One of his early documentaries A Child of the Streets (1967), garnered him wide acclaim. In all, he has made over 70 documentary and short films.