Madhur Bhandarkar

Brief Intro

Madhur Bhandarkar is a Bollywood director, writer and a producer. He had won a three National Film Award, two for best movie and one for best director. Madhur is known as ‘realistic film maker’ as plot of his stories are based on the real life or about surrounding environment. He is the director of popular movies like ‘Chandni Bar’, ‘Page 3’, ‘Traffic Signal’, and ‘Fashion’. He is also described as The Film Maker of The First Decade of 21st Century.

Early Life & Background

Madhur Bhandarkar was born on 26^th August 1968 in a middle class family. He is a school dropout. Before entering film industry, Madhur had worked in many places. His job in a video cassette library in Khar gave him access to a large collection of movies from which he studied film-making.  At time of his struggle, he had travelled by bus.

Journey in the industry

Madhur started his career as an assistant director with many small time filmmakers. Finally Madhur got his chance and worked as an assistant to Ram Gopal Varma where he also played his first cameo in 1995 film ‘Rangeela’.

A couple of years later he made his directorial debut with ‘Trishakti’ which took more than three years to make and which was finally released in 1999. The film was flop at the box office.

In 2001, Madhur directed another film ‘Chandni Bar’ starring Tabu and Atul Kulkarni. This film made Madhur one of the top filmmaker in the industry as the film was a critically acclaimed and a box office success. Madhur received his first National Award for ‘Chandni Bar’.

Then Madhur picked up realistic topic from the different field and made the films on it. ‘Page 3’ and ‘Traffic Signal’ bagged two national awards in the pocket of Madhur. Then Madhur directed film ‘Corporate’ which was based on corporate world. He got this idea from the Coke-Pepsi controversy. After the film he was invited to deliver lectures on corporate issues to management students in the various management colleges.

After he made a film on the fashion industry named ‘Fashion’ in 2008 starring Priyanka Chopra and Madhur played a cameo in this movie. Movie actress Priyanka Chopra won a National Awards for Best Actress and Kangana Ranaut won Best Supporting Actress.

In 2009, Madhur was awarded the Gangasharan Singh Award by the HRD Ministry of India, this Presidential Award was given to him for his contribution to Hindi Cinema.

Most of Madhur’s films are focus on female in the different industries such as Tabu in Chandni Bar, Raveena Tandon in Satta, Konkona Sen Sharma in Page 3, Bipasha Basu in Corporate, Priyanka Chopra in Fashion and Kareena Kapoor in Heroine. He has also portrayed gay & druggist characters in his movies like Page 3, Traffic signal, Fashion and Heroine. Madhur believe that his movie shows the mirror to the society.

In 2011, Madhur directed his first comedy romantic film ‘Dil Toh Baacha Hai Ji’ which was also a super hit at the box office.

Personal life

Madhur married his girlfriend Renu Namboodiri on 15^th December 2003 in Mumbai. They have a daughter named Siddhi.

Name of films

As a Director:

‘Trishakti’ in 1999

‘Chandni Bar’ in 2001

‘Satta’ in 2003

‘Aan: Men at Work’ in 2004

‘Page 3’ in 2005

‘Corporate’ in 2006

‘Traffic Signal’ in 2007

‘Fashion’ in 2008

‘Jail’ in 2010

‘Dil Toh Baacha Hai Ji’ in 2011

‘Heroine’ in 2012

As a Writer:

‘Chandni Bar’ in 2001 (Story)

‘Satta’ in 2003 (Dialogue and Story)

‘Aan: Men at Work’ in 2004 (Dialogue and Story)

‘Page 3’ in 2005 (Dialogue)

‘Corporate’ in 2006 (Screenplay)

‘Traffic Signal’ in 2007 (Dialogue, Screenplay and Story)

‘Fashion’ in 2008 (Screenplay and Story)

‘Jail’ in 2010 (Story)

As an Actor or Cameo:

‘Rangeela’ in 1995

‘Fashion’ as himself in 2008

‘Hum Tum Shabana’ as Special Appearance in 2011

Name of Serial

As a Director:

‘Specials At 10’ on Sony TV (Celebrity Director)

Awards/Achievements

International Acclaims:

Page 3: It was official selected at the ‘Raindance Film Festival’ at London and ‘IFFLA (Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles)’ at Los Angeles in 2006.

Corporate: It was official selected at the ‘Berlin Asia-Pacific Film Festival’ in 2006.

Fashion: It was official selected at the ‘31st Moscow International Film Festival’, ‘Festival de Festivals’ at St.Petersburg and ‘Norway Bollywood Festival’ in 2009.

Retrospective of ‘Page 3’, ‘Traffic Signal’ and ‘Fashion’ with Russian Sub-Titles was held in Russia by the Ministry of Culture in 2009. They even honored Madhur with the Best Director award for the Outstanding Contribution to Indian Cinema.

Retrospective of ‘Chandni Bar’, ‘Page 3’, ‘Corporate’, ‘Traffic Signal’, ‘Fashion’ and ‘Jail’ was held at the ‘33rd Cairo International Film Festival’ in Egypt in 2009.