Vidhu Vinod Chopra
Vidhu Vinod Chopra (Hindi: विधु विनोद चोपड़ा, born 5 September 1952) is an Indian film director, producer, editor, screenwriter, lyricist and actor. His well-known films include "Parinda" (1988), "" (1994), the "Munna Bhai film series", "3 Idiots" (2009), "PK" (2014), "Sanju" (2018), "Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga" (2019), and "Shikara" (2020), which except for last two have been commercially highly successful and some of the highest grossing Indian films. He is the founder of Vinod Chopra Films and Vinod Chopra Productions. Early life. Chopra was born and grew up in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India . His father was D. N. Chopra and veteran filmmaker Ramanand Sagar was his half-brother. His father's family originally came from Peshawar, British India. His mother was Shanti Devi Mahalakshmi who left Kashmir with him and family after the exodus and mass killings of Kashmiri Pandits due to the Kashmir conflict in 1990. He dedicated his movie "Shikara" to his mother which is based on the same theme. He studied film direction at the Film and Television Institute of India in Pune. Career. Chopra's first student short film, "Murder at Monkey Hill", won the National Film Award for  Best Short Experimental Film and the Guru Dutt Memorial Award for Best Student Film. This was followed by a short documentary highlighting the plight of India's destitute children, called "An Encounter with Faces", which was nominated for an Academy Award in the Documentary Short Subject category in 1979. It also won the Grand Prix at the Tampere Film Festival in 1980. "Sazaye Maut", his first full-length feature film, was an adaptation of his previous short, "Murder at Monkey Hill". It starred Naseeruddin Shah, Radha Saluja and Dilip Dhawan. Vanraj Bhatia composed the music for the film. For "Khamosh , his next directorial venture, Chopra assembled a cast featuring some of the finest acting talent in India. Shabana Azmi, Amol Palekar, Naseeruddin Shah and Pankaj Kapoor, among others, appeared in prominent roles. An inventive meta thriller set in Kashmir, Khamosh" remains one of the notable Indian films in the genre. "Parinda" (1989), is a landmark film in Hindi cinema. It expanded the orbit of the crime drama and the vocabulary of images used in Hindi films while garnering widespread critical acclaim and numerous awards. Several modern Indian filmmakers have expressed their admiration for and drawn inspiration from Chopra's film . Chopra's next film, "", was a patriotic romantic drama set during the decline of the British Raj. With Anil Kapoor and Manisha Koirala in leading roles, it was also the last film to have its music composed by the legendary R. D. Burman. Burman received a Filmfare Award for Best Music Director and the film won a total of nine awards at the 40th Filmfare Awards. He founded his own production company, Vinod Chopra Films, in 1985. Since then, the company has gone on to produce major Bollywood films, and is currently one of the biggest and most successful film  production houses in India. Bengali filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak affectionately gave him the name 'Vidhu'. Films. His critically acclaimed films include "Parinda", "", "Mission Kashmir", the "Munna Bhai" series, "Parineeta", and "3 Idiots". "3 Idiots" went on to become one of the most successful films in India, and became the first film in the country to cross Rs. 200 crore at the boxoffice. It also found popular appeal in markets like Taiwan and Korea. His other films,PK and Sanju were one of the highest grossing Indian films. He also made his Hollywood directorial debut with the film "Broken Horses" in 2015 . However, it received a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 22%, and was a commercial disaster, only making Rs. 60 lakh in its opening weekend. His latest film, "Shikara" is a Hindi language historical romance film released on 7 February 2020 marking his return to direction in India after 13 years. His last directorial feature film, "" released in 2007. Awards and nominations. Vidhu Vinod Chopra has received one nomination at the Academy Awards, six National Film Awards, and five awards from fourteen nominations at the Filmfare Awards. Personal life. He is married to Indian film critic, Anupama Chopra. He has two children  with her, a son, Agni and a daughter, Zuni Chopra.