Mani Kaul

Mani Kaul (25 December 1944 – 6 July 2011) was an Indian Kashmiri Pandit director of Hindi films and an influential figure in Indian parallel cinema. He graduated from the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) where he was a student of Ritwik Ghatak and later became a teacher. Starting his career with Uski Roti (1969), which won him the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Movie, he went on to win four of them in all. He won the National Film Award for Best Direction in 1974 for Duvidha and later the National Film Award for his documentary film, Siddheshwari in 1989.

Early life and background

Born Rabindranath Kaul, in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, in a Kashmiri Pandit family, Kaul first joined FTII, Pune as an acting student and later shifted to the direction course, where noted film director Ritwik Ghatak was a teacher, graduating in 1966.

He was the nephew of actor-director Mahesh Kaul, who made films like Raj Kapoor starrer Sapnon Ka Saudagar (1968).

Career

His first film Uski Roti (1969) has been described as "one of the key films of the New Indian Cinema or the Indian New Wave". It marked a drastic departure from earlier Indian cinema technique, form and narrative. It was one of the early formal experimental films in Indian cinema.