Shabana Azmi’s father was renowned poet Kaifi Azmi and her mother Shaukat Azmi is a Urdu writer who is also a stage actress. Her brother, Baba Azmi, is a cinematographer. In December 1984 she is married to noted scriptwriter and lyricist Javed Akhtar. She completed a graduation degree in Psychology from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, followed by a course in Acting at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune. She topped the list of successful candidates of 1972. In 1974, she made his debut with the film Ankur.She has acted in more than one hundred Hindi films, both in the mainstream as well as in parallel cinema.In 1972, her first movie to be released was Shyam Benegal’s Ankur which won the National Award.In 1982, she received the Filmfare and National Awards for her film Arth.She received the national awards consecutively for three years from 1983 to 1985 for her roles in movies, Arth, Khandhar and Paar.In 1999, her film named Godmother brought her another national award taking her tally to five national awards.Several of her films have received attention in the international arena, including at the Norwegian Film Institute and the Smithsonian Institution. A number of her films have won international acclaim including John Schlesinger’s Madame Sousatzka, Nicholas Klotz’s Bengali Night, Roland Joffe’s City of Joy, Channel 4’s Immaculate Conception, Blake Edward’s The Son of Pink Panther and Ismail Merchant’s In Custody.
