Madhur Bhandarkar is a National Award-winning Indian film director, script writer, and producer. He is best known for his films such as Chandni Bar (2001), Page 3 (2005), Traffic Signal (2007), and Fashion (2008). He won the National Award for Best Director for Traffic Signal.
Madhur Bhandarkar worked in a video cassette library in Khar, a suburb of Mumbai. This gave him access to a large collection of movies and he studied film-making through it.
After trying his skills at production and various other stints including as assistant to film director Ashok Gaikwad, Bhandarkar landed up as an assistant to Ram Gopal Varma. He even played a small role in his 1995 film Rangeela. In the same year he made a pilot episode of a TV serial 'Apne Rang Hazaar' but did not find success.
A couple of years later he made his directorial debut with Trishakti which took more than two years to make and released in 1999. The film had a relatively low key cast and was largely ignored at the box office. After two years he directed Chandni Bar (2001) starring Tabu and Atul Kulkarni.
The film was a critically acclaimed success, which took Bhandarkar into the top league of filmmakers in Bollywood. He received his first National Award for this film and there on won National awards for his films Page-3 and Traffic Signal.
Three National Awards winning director Madhur Bhandarkar has recently added one more feather to his cap. Madhur was conferred PL Deshpande Award a.k.a. Zenith Asia Award for significantly shaping the film making culture in his unique works and he has been described as The Film Maker of The First Decade of 21st Century.
On the Silver Jubilee Year of Aashay Film Club, this award ceremony took place on 16th Nov at National Film Archive Theatre during 8th ‘Pulotsav – An Art Festival’ in Pune.
PL Deshpande was a renowned writer, stage and film actor and his literary works are still revered in Maharashtra and others parts of the world. In his honour, Zenith Asia Award was given to Madhur Bhandarkar and his film Chandni Bar was also screened during the fest amongst landmarked 25 films from the world cinema.
Also recently, National Film Archive of India (NFAI) which falls under Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Government of India preserved all the films of renowned Indian Film-Maker Madhur Bhandarkar.
Chandani Bar, Page-3, Corporate, Traffic Signal, Fashion and Jail, are all the films of the realistic film-maker which will now find space in Government’s Archival data for Indian Films.
The nature of job of National Film Archive of India is to safeguard the heritage of Indian Cinema for posterity and act as a centre for dissemination of a healthy film culture in the country.
Promotion of film scholarship and research on various aspects of cinema also form part of its Charter. Familiarizing foreign audiences with Indian Cinema and to make it more visible across the globe is another declared objective of the Archive.
