Anurag Kashyap is an Indian filmmaker and actor known for his works in Hindi cinema. He is the recipient of several accolades, including four Filmfare Awards. For his contributions to film, the Government of France awarded him the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Knight of the Order of Arts and letters) in 2013.

After writing a television serial, Kashyap got his major break as a co-writer in Ram Gopal Varma's crime drama Satya (1998) and made his directorial debut with Paanch, which never had a theatrical release due to censorship issues. He then went on to direct Black Friday (2004), a film based on the namesake book by Hussain Zaidi about the 1993 Bombay bombings. Its release was held up for two years by the District Board of Film Certification because of the pending verdict of the case at that time but was released in 2007 to widespread critical appreciation. Kashyap's follow-up, No Smoking (2007) met with negative reviews and performed poorly at the box-office. His next venture Dev.D (2009), a modern adaptation of Devdas was a critical and commercial success; followed by the socio-political drama Gulaal (2009), and the thriller That Girl in Yellow Boots (2011).

Kashyap's prominence increased with the two-part crime drama, Gangs of Wasseypur (2012). Kashyap subsequently co-produced the critically acclaimed drama The Lunchbox, and the biographical drama Shahid (both 2013), the former earned him a BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language nomination. His next films were the anthology Bombay Talkies (2013), and the drama Ugly (2014). In 2016, Kashyap directed Raman Raghav 2.0, a film inspired by the serial killer Raman Raghav. His next film was the sports drama Mukkabaaz, which was released in 2018. The same year, he co-directed India's first Netflix Original series, the crime thriller Sacred Games, based on Vikram Chandra's novel of the same name and the romantic drama Manmarziyaan. He is also the co-founder of a film production company, Good Bad Films.

Early Life

Kashyap was born on 10 September 1972 to a Rajput family in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh. His father Sri Prakash Singh is a retired Chief Engineer of the Uttar Pradesh Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam Limited and was posted in Obra Thermal Power Station in Sonbhadra district near Varanasi. He did his early schooling in Green School Dehradun and, age eight onwards, at the Scindia School in Gwalior. Some of the locations used in Gangs of Wasseypur are also influenced from his own old house where he himself lived with his parents, sister, Anubhuti Kashyap, and brother, Abhinav Kashyap. Abhinav is also a filmmaker, who made his directorial debut with the masala blockbuster, Dabangg (2010). Anubhuti has been his assistant in most of his films. She made her directorial debut with Doctor G (2022), a medical campus comedy, starring Ayushmann Khurrana, Rakul Preet Singh, Shefali Shah and Sheeba Chaddha.

Owing to his desire to become a scientist, Kashyap went to Delhi for his higher studies and enrolled himself into a zoology course at the Hansraj College (University of Delhi); he graduated in 1993. He then eventually joined the street theatre group, Jana Natya Manch; and did many street plays. The same year, his couple of friends "urged [him] to catch a de Sica retrospective" at the International Film Festival of India. In ten days, he saw 55 films at the festival, and Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves was the film that influenced him the most.

Career

Writer and Director

In 1995, an acquaintance introduced Kashyap to Shivam Nair. The day they met, Kashyap watched Taxi Driver (1976) at Nair's place, and the film inspired him to "write something". The team of Sriram Raghavan, Sridhar Raghavan and Shiv Subramaniam were working on two projects, one of which was a short TV series, Auto Narayan, based on the life of serial killer Auto Shankar; the second one was a film scripted by Kashyap. Auto Narayan got delayed because the script written by Subramaniam was not "working". Kashyap rewrote the script and got credit for the same, but it was scrapped. In 1997, he wrote the screenplay of Hansal Mehta's first film, Jayate which failed to find a theatrical release; and episodes of the TV series Kabhie Kabhie (1997).

In 1998, actor Manoj Bajpayee suggested his name to Ram Gopal Varma to write a film. Varma liked Kashyap's Auto Narayan and hired him, alongside Saurabh Shukla to write the script for his crime film, Satya (1998). Satya was a critical and commercial success, and is regarded as one of the best films of Indian cinema. He later collaborated with Varma in scripting Kaun (1999) and writing dialogues for Shool (1999). In 1999, he made a short film, titled Last Train to Mahakali for television.

In 2022, Kashyap directed the science fiction thriller Dobaaraa. The film is an official remake of the 2018 Spanish film Mirage; it opened at the London Indian Film Festival and was released theatrically on 19 August 2022. Dobaaraa met with mostly positive reviews with Tanul Thakur of The Wire writing: “A sharp adaptation, the film is deeper than it cares to admit and never slips into an instructional mode.”

Just months after releasing Dobaara, Kashyap released another directorial venture titled Almost Pyaar with DJ Mohabbat. The musical romantic drama starred Alaya F and debutant Karan Mehta. It had its world premiere at the 2022 Marrakech International Film Festival and the film was released theatrically on 3 February 2023.

Actor

Kashyap has made cameo appearances in his films and those of others, including Black Friday, No Smoking, Tera Kya Hoga Johnny (2008), Luck by Chance (2009), Dev.D, Gulaal, Soundtrack (2011), Trishna (2011), Bhoothnath Returns (2014), Happy New Year (2014) and I Am (2010), playing a child abuser. The same year, he played a police officer in the short film Encounter (2010), co-starring Nimrat Kaur. In 2011, he playing the full-fledged role of the antagonist Bunty Bhaiya in Tigmanshu Dhulia's crime thriller Shagird (2011).

In 2016, Kashyap starred in AR Murugadoss's Akira, starring Sonakshi Sinha; where he played the role of a corrupt police officer. In 2017, he acted in the short film titled Chhuri, alongside Tisca Chopra and Surveen Chawla. He also played the role of the antagonist in the Tamil-language thriller Imaikkaa Nodigal (2018) directed by R. Ajay Gnanamuthu. In 2020, Kashyap played an exaggerated version of himself in AK vs AK directed by Vikramaditya Motwane, opposite Anil Kapoor. He also wrote the dialogues and served as one of the executive producers.

Styles, themes and influences

Kashyap is regarded as an auteur and is credited for pioneering India's indie scene in the early 2000s. While promoting Bombay Talkies in Anupama Chopra's show, Dibakar Banerjee described Kashyap's aesthetics as "purely new age or purely Indian"; projecting "modern post independence India" in his films. He prefers shooting on real locations by employing guerrilla-filmmaking techniques with hidden cameras, and often makes his actors improvise their dialogues on set. In Ugly, he did not show the script to any of the lead actors. He frequently uses hand-held camera and experimental soundtracks.

Film maker Zoya Akhtar wrote: “He has a very strong storytelling style and he proved that you could tell a great story with not a lot of money.” Actor Ranbir Kapoor said, “All his films may not be big money spinners but the impact Anurag has, his contribution to Indian cinema, is immense.” Canadian film critic and festival programmer Cameron Bailey has called Kashyap as "one of the most knowledgeable filmmaker".

The protagonists of his films often deal with excessive drug, smoke or alcohol consumption, personal guilt, extreme rage and arrogance which leads them into self-shattering situations. Often portrays small but strong female characters. Most of his films deal with realistic scenarios and take clues from real incidents. Like the 1976–77 Joshi-Abhyankar serial murders reference in Paanch, the 1993 Mumbai bombing in Black Friday, the 1999 Delhi hit-and-run case and DPS MMS Scandal in Dev.D and the depiction of real life gang wars in Gangs of Wasseypur. Ugly came from his "personal guilt" of not spending enough time with his daughter and the fear of losing her. With several real-life incidents like IAS officer whose wife filed a case of brutality against him. A song "Sylvia" in Bombay Velvet was named after the Nanavati case, where Sylvia Nanavati was K. M. Nanavati's wife.

Kashyap's work inspired British director Danny Boyle, who has cited Black Friday and Satya as the inspirations for his Academy Award-winning film Slumdog Millionaire (2008). Boyle stated that a chase in one of the opening scenes of Slumdog Millionaire was based on a "12-minute police chase through the crowded Dharavi slum" in Black Friday. He also described Satya's "slick, often mesmerizing" portrayal of the Mumbai underworld, which included gritty and realistic "brutality and urban violence," directly influenced the portrayal of the Mumbai underworld in Slumdog Millionaire.

Awards and Honours

On 20 May 2013, Kashyap was awarded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters) by the French government at 2013 Cannes Film Festival, when India was the guest country of the festival to commemorate 100 years of Indian cinema.

He has also served as one of the jury members at many film festivals including the 2009 Venice Film Festival, 2013 Sundance Film Festival, 13th Marrakech Film Festival, and the 20th Busan International Film Festival. In 2016, Kashyap was awarded with Yash Bharti Award by the Government of Uttar Pradesh for his contribution in the field of cinema.

In 1999, Kashyap shared the Screen Award for Best Screenplay, along with Saurabh Shukla for Satya. The next year, his short film Last Train to Mahakali won the Special Jury Award at the same awards. His feature film debut Black Friday won the Grand Jury Prize at the 3rd Annual Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles, and was a nominee for the Golden Leopard (Best Film) Award at the 57th Locarno International Film Festival.

In 2011, Kashyap shared the Best Story and Best Screenplay Award at the 56th Filmfare Awards with Vikramaditya Motwane for Udaan. The next year he shared the Filmfare Award for Best Dialogue with Zeishan Quadri, Sachin Ladia and Akhilesh Jaiswal for Gangs of Wasseypur at the 58th Filmfare Awards; the film also won the Critics Award Best Movie at the same award show. At the 60th Filmfare Awards, Kashyap won the Filmfare Award for Best Editing with Abhijit Kokate for Queen.