Anurag Kashyap (director)

Anurag Kashyap (born 10 September 1972) is an Indian filmmaker and actor known for his works in Hindi cinema. He is the recipient of several accolades, including four Filmfare Awards. For his contributions to film, the Government of France awarded him the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Knight of the Order of Arts and letters) in 2013.

After writing a television serial, Kashyap got his major break as a co-writer in Ram Gopal Varma's crime drama ''Satya'' (1998) and made his directorial debut with '' Paanch'', which never had a theatrical release due to censorship issues. He then went on to direct '' Black Friday'' (2004), a film based on the namesake book by Hussain Zaidi about the 1993 Bombay bombings. Its release was held up for two years by the Central Board of Film Certification because of the pending verdict of the case at that time but was released in 2007 to widespread critical appreciation. Kashyap's follow-up, '' No Smoking'' (2007) met with negative reviews and performed poorly at the box-office. His next venture ''Dev.D'' (2009), a modern adaptation of Devdas was a critical and commercial success; followed by the socio-political drama ''Gulaal'' (2009), and the thriller '' That Girl in Yellow Boots'' (2011).

Kashyap's prominence increased with the two-part crime drama, ''Gangs of Wasseypur'' (2012). Kashyap subsequently co-produced the critically acclaimed drama ''The Lunchbox'', and the biographical drama ''Shahid'' (both 2013), the former earned him a BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language nomination. His next films were the anthology ''Bombay Talkies'' (2013), and the drama '' Ugly'' (2014). In 2016, Kashyap directed '' Raman Raghav 2.0'', a film inspired by the serial killer Raman Raghav. His next film was the sports drama ''Mukkabaaz'', which was released in 2018. The same year, he co-directed India's first Netflix Original series, the crime thriller '' Sacred Games'', based on Vikram Chandra's novel of the same name and the romantic drama ''Manmarziyaan''. He is also the co-founder of a film production company, Good Bad Films.

Early life

Kashyap was born on 10 September 1972 to a Rajput family in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh. His father Sri Prakash Singh is a retired Chief Engineer of the Uttar Pradesh Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam Limited and was posted in Obra Thermal Power Station in Sonbhadra district near Varanasi. He did his early schooling in Green School Dehradun and, age eight onwards, at the Scindia School in Gwalior. Some of the locations used in ''Gangs of Wasseypur'' are also influenced from his own old house where he himself lived with his parents, sister, Anubhuti Kashyap, and brother, Abhinav Kashyap. Abhinav is also a filmmaker, who made his directorial debut with the masala blockbuster, ''Dabangg'' (2010). Anubhuti has been his assistant in most of his films. She made her directorial debut with ''Doctor G'' (2022), a medical campus comedy, starring Ayushmann Khurrana, Rakul Preet Singh, and Shefali Shah.

Owing to his desire to become a scientist, Kashyap went to Delhi for his higher studies and enrolled himself into a zoology course at the Hansraj College (University of Delhi); he graduated in 1993. He then eventually joined the street theatre group, Jana Natya Manch; and did many street plays.The 'Pahli Seedi' Anurag Kashyap Interview
, excerpts from the interview (in Hindi) conducted by Pravesh Bhardwaj and Ajay Brahmatmaj The same year, his couple of friends "urged imto catch a de Sica retrospective" at the International Film Festival of India. In ten days, he saw 55 films at the festival, and Vittorio De Sica's ''Bicycle Thieves'' was the film that influenced him the most.

Career

After the de Sica experience, Kashyap arrived in Mumbai in 1993 with INR 5,000 in his pocket. Soon the money ran out, and he spent months on the streets, staying in lofts, "sleeping on beaches," "under a water tank and in the St Xavier's ollegeboys hostel." He then managed to find work at Prithvi Theatre, but his first play remained incomplete because the director died.

Writer and director

1990–1999

In 1995, an acquaintance introduced Kashyap to Shivam Nair. The day they met, Kashyap watched ''Taxi Driver'' (1976) at Nair's place, and the film inspired him to "write something". The team of Sriram Raghavan, Sridhar Raghavan and Shiv Subramaniam were working on two projects, one of which was a short TV series, ''Auto Narayan'', based on the life of serial killer Auto Shankar; the second one was a film scripted by Kashyap. ''Auto Narayan'' got delayed because the script written by Subramaniam was not "working". Kashyap rewrote the script and got credit for the same, but it was scrapped. In 1997, he wrote the screenplay of Hansal Mehta's first film, ''Jayate'' which failed to find a theatrical release; and episodes of the TV series '' Kabhie Kabhie'' (1997).

In 1998, actor Manoj Bajpayee suggested his name to Ram Gopal Varma to write a film. Varma liked Kashyap's ''Auto Narayan'' and hired him, alongside Saurabh Shukla to write the script for his crime film, ''Satya'' (1998). ''Satya'' was a critical and commercial success, and is regarded as one of the best films of Indian cinema. He later collaborated with Varma in scripting ''Kaun'' (1999) and writing dialogues for '' Shool'' (1999). In 1999, he made a short film, titled '' Last Train to Mahakali'' for television.

2000–2009

While working with Nair, Kashyap came across files related to the Joshi-Abhyankar serial murders that took place in Pune in 1976, which became the inspiration for his directorial debut '' Paanch''. A crime thriller about a group of five friends of a rock band who turn into criminals. The film faced trouble with the Central Board of Film Certification because the board felt that it dealt unapologetically with sex, drugs and celebrated violence.
It was cleared by the Board in 2001, but remains unreleased due to some problems faced by the producer. In these years, he also wrote dialogues for many films including '' Paisa Vasool'' (2004), Mani Ratnam's '' Yuva'' (2004), the Canadian film ''Water'' (2005), ''Main Aisa Hi Hoon'' (2005) and ''Mixed Doubles'' (2006).

After a failed attempt to make ''Allwyn Kalicharan'' in 2003, Kashyap started working on '' Black Friday'', a film based on the namesake book by Hussain Zaidi about the 1993 Bombay bombings. The Bombay high court put a stay on the release of the film, until the judgement in the bomb blasts case was delivered. It was decided after a petition filed by a group of 1993 bomb blasts accused, challenging the release of the film based on their case. The film got censorship clearance in 2007, and was released after two years meeting universal acclaim. Nikhat Kazmi gave the film a three star out of five rating and mentioned: "It was indeed a difficult film to make, yet the director has managed to grapple with all the loose threads and put them together in a composite whole. So much so, the film moves like a taut thriller, without ideology coloring the sepia frames."

The same year, Kashyap adapted Stephen King's short story " Quitters, Inc." into '' No Smoking''. A surrealistic thriller about a chain-smoker who gets trapped in the maze of a person who guarantees will make him quit smoking. The film starring John Abraham, Ayesha Takia, Ranvir Shorey and Paresh Rawal in the leads with music by Vishal Bhardwaj, premiered at the Rome Film Festival. ''No Smoking'' received an overwhelming negative reception and failed at the box-office. CNN-IBN's Rajeev Masand called it a "colossal disappointment". His final release of the year was ''Return of Hanuman'', an animation film about adventures of the Hindu god Hanuman.

In 2009, Kashyap had two releases. ''Dev.D'', a contemporary takes on Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay's novel ''Devdas''. It was the twelfth film adaptation of the Bengali novel. Starring Abhay Deol who actually pitched the original idea of the film to Kashyap, with Mahie Gill and newcomer Kalki Koechlin portraying the characters of "Paro" and Chandramukhi respectively. The film met with generally positive reviews and strong box office results. ''Gulaal'', a political drama, was his final release of that year. Kashyap started working on the film in 2005 and had finished 70–80 per cent of the film in 2006, when its producer fell ill. Later on, Zee Motion Pictures took over the project and was finally finished in 2008 and released on 13 March 2009. Anupama Chopra gave the film three stars and referred to Kashyap as "the Anti-Yash Chopra". Despite positive reviews, the film underperformed at the box office.

2010s

''Mumbai Cutting'' (2010), an anthology film, was his next directorial venture. It consisted of eleven short films made by eleven directors. He directed one of the short films. It premiered at the 2008 Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles.

In 2011, Kashyap directed '' That Girl in Yellow Boots'', a thriller starring Kalki Koechlin who also co-wrote the film with him. The film was screened at many festivals including 2010 Toronto International Film Festival, 67th Venice International Film Festival, Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles and the London Indian Film Festival gave it 3.5 out of 4 stars, praising the character-driven film and the portrayal of its lead alongside the city compared to most Hindi films: " a film like this provides a radically different view of India than you can find in the pleasures and excesses of Bollywood".

In 2012, Kashyap came up with his ambitious directorial venture ''Gangs of Wasseypur'', which screened at the 2012 Cannes Directors' Fortnight, London Indian Film Festival