Zoya Akhtar
Zoya at the World Gaming day
Born	(1972-10-14) October 14, 1972 (age 39) Bombay, India
Occupation	Director, Screenwriter
Years active	1999—present

Zoya Akhtar is a contemporary Indian film director. She made her debut as director with critically acclaimed Luck By Chance (2009).^[1][2] In 2011, she directed the critically and commercially successful film Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara and won her Filmfare Award for Best Director.

Personal life[link]

Zoya Akhtar was born on October 14, 1972 in Bombay (now Mumbai). Her stepmother is Shabana Azmi. Zoya belongs to a Akhtar-Azmi family and is the daughter of poet, lyricist and screenwriter Javed Akhtar, elder sister of Farhan Akhtar and granddaughter of Urdu poet Jan Nisar Akhtar. Her mother is screenwriter Honey Irani. She went to school at Maneckji Cooper and earned her Bachelors of Arts degree at Xavier's College, both in Mumbai. Later, she joined the New York University Film School to learn film production.^[3]

Zoya was brought up atheist, as her father Javed Akhtar stated in his speech "Spirituality, Halo or Hoax".^[4]

Early career[link]

Zoya has worked on a number of commercials including Pepsi and Finolex. She has co-directed a music video called Price of Bullets for a rock band. She has also worked as a casting director for various films including Dil Chahta Hai, Kamasutra: A Tale of Love and Split Wide Open, and as an assistant director for her brother Farhan's films, Lakshya (film) and Dil Chahta Hai. She then worked as an executive producer for her longtime friend Reema Kagti's Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd., also produced by Excel Entertainment.^[3]

Direction[link]

Zoya made her directorial debut with Luck By Chance which was well-received^[1] by critics, despite not doing well at the box office.^[5] Her second movie as a director is Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, a multistarrer with Hrithik Roshan, Abhay Deol, Farhan Akhtar, Katrina Kaif and Kalki Koechlin.^[6] which turned out to be a huge box office success and was well received by critics and won her Filmfare Award for Best Director.

Filmography[link]

Director[link]

Screenplay Writer[link]

Story Writer[link]

Assistant Director[link]

Executive Producer[link]

Other[link]

She appeared on the Valentine's Day charity show of Kaun Banega Crorepati along with her brother Farhan Akhtar.^[7]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Zoya Akhtar at the Internet Movie Database
• Zoya Akhtar interview

Anurag Kashyap
Born	(1972-09-10) 10 September 1972 (age 39) Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, India
Occupation	film director, producer, screenwriter and actor
Years active	1996–present
Spouse	Aarti Bajaj (divorced) Kalki Koechlin (2011–present)

Anurag Singh Kashyap (born 10 September 1972) is an Indian film director and screenwriter. As a filmmaker, he is known for Black Friday (2004), a controversial^[1][2][3] and award-winning Hindi film about the 1993 Bombay bombings, followed by No Smoking (2007), Dev D (2009) and Gulaal (2009). As a screenwriter, he wrote the scripts for the Filmfare Award-winning Satya (1998) and the Academy Award-nominated Canadian film Water (2005).

In 1999, Kashyap won the Best Screenplay award for Satya at the Star Screen Awards. The next year, his short film Last Train to Mahakali won the Special Jury Award at the same awards.^[4] His feature film debut Black Friday won the Grand Jury Prize at the 3rd Annual Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles (2005),^[5] and was a nominee for the "Golden Leopard" (Best Film) at the 57th Locarno International Film Festival (2004).^[6] In 2010, he announced his association with Tumbhi where he and his team will make six short films for Tumbhi and start his blog with them, as well.^[7][8][9] He was listed on the The DNA power list: Top 50 influentials, a list of 50 most influential Indians in 2011.^[10]

Early life[link]

Anurag Kashyap was born in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, where his father worked for the state electricity board. He grew up in several cities, including Varanasi, Saharanpur, and Obra. He did his early schooling in Dehradun and, age eight onwards, at the Scindia School in Gwalior.^[11][12][13]

He was fascinated with films right from childhood. Even at age five, would watch Hindi films like Kora Kagaz and Aandhi at a nearby club and open-air theater. This came to an end once he began his schooling.^[14]

Due to Kashyap's desire to become a scientist, he 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.^[15][16][17] During his college days, he started watching films again and also got involved with drugs and alcohol. He was confused and depressed and had joined a street theater group, Jana Natya Manch; he ended up doing a lot of street plays.^[12][14][17] The same year, a couple of friends introduced him to world cinema; they "urged [him] to catch a de Sica retrospective" at the International Film Festival of India.^[11][12] In ten days, he saw 55 films at the festival,^[17][18] and de Sica's Bicycle Thieves was the film that influenced him the most; watching it "was an epiphany."^[15]

"from all different perspectives and in a way you can say that these films changed my life and it’s meaning completely for me. Just that one film festival and I decided that this is what I want to be a part of — in next five months I was in Mumbai".^[17]

Career[link]

The film festival and de Sica made a deep impact on Kashyap — he wanted to do something with films — so he landed in Mumbai in June 1993 with INR 5,000– 6,000 in his pocket.^[14][19] The money ran out after he stayed for a couple of days in a "good hotel." He spent the next eight months on the streets, staying in lofts, "sleeping on beaches," "under a water tank and in the St Xavier's [college] boys hostel."^[12] He managed to find work at Prithvi Theatre, but his first play remained incomplete because the director died. He then joined Makrand Deshpande's troupe — Samrangan — but left because he "could not face life. [He] wanted to act but [he] couldn't act with all that frustration."^[16]