Vidhu Vinod Chopra

Vidhu Vinod Chopra

Chopra at the DVD Launch of PK in 2015
Born (1952-09-05) 5 September 1952
Jammu and Kashmir
Notable work Parinda, 1942: A Love Story, Eklavya: The Royal Guard, "Munna Bhai M.B.B.S.,Lage Raho Munna Bhai", 3 Idiots
Spouse(s) Renu Saluja (divorced)
Anupama Chopra (m. 1990)
Relatives

Yash Chopra (uncle),
Karan Johar (cousin)

Aditya Chopra (cousin)
Website vinodchoprafilms

Vidhu Vinod Chopra (born September 5, 1952) is an Indian film director, screenwriter and producer. Parinda, 1942: A Love Story, Eklavya: The Royal Guard, Munna Bhai film series (Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. and Lage Raho Munna Bhai) and 3 Idiots are some of his highly popular films. He is the founder of Vinod Chopra Films.

Early life

Chopra grew up in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India.[1] His father was D. N. Chopra and veteran filmmaker Ramanand Sagar was his half-brother.[2] He is of Punjabi descent and his parents are originally from Peshawar.[3] His love of Hindi cinema and support of his family encouraged him to study film direction. For this purpose, he went to Pune and studied film direction at the Film and Television Institute of India.

Career

Chopra's first student short, Murder at Monkey Hill, won the National Film Award for Best Short Experimental Film and the Guru Dutt Memorial Award for Best Student Film.[4]

This was followed by a short documentary highlighting the plight of India's destitute children, called An Encounter with Faces, which was nominated for an Academy Award in the Documentary Short Subject category in 1979. It also won the Grand Prix at the Tampere Film Festival in 1980.[5]

Films

His first feature film, shot in black-and-white, was Sazaa-E-Maut (Death Penalty) – a thriller made on a shoestring budget with then-unknown actor Naseeruddin Shah and editor Renu Saluja, who were his fellow students at FTII, Pune. His critically acclaimed films include Parinda, 1942: A Love Story, Mission Kashmir, the Munna Bhai series, Parineeta, Eklavya: The Royal Guard, and 3 Idiots.

Three Commandments

In a scriptwriters conference[6] held in 2008 Abhijat Joshi, who co-wrote Munna Bhai MBBS with Rajkumar Hirani, stated the following as the commandments Vidhu Vinod Chopra follows while writing screenplays. Though Chopra claims these to be Ingmar Bergmen's commandments, Joshi was unable to find any such reference in his later researches.

The three commandments are as follows:

  1. You will entertain.
  2. You will not sell your soul when you entertain.
  3. You will treat each film as if it is your last film.

Joshi, who considers Chopra as his Guru, claims in the conference that he follows all the three commandments in all his works. The results that came out of these commandments have made their mark in the history of film.

Filmography

Year Film Role(s)
2016 Wazir Producer, editor
2015 Broken Horses Producer, director, writer
2014 PK Producer
2012 Ferrari Ki Sawaari Producer, writer
2009 3 Idiots Producer, Screenplay Associate
2007 Eklavya: The Royal Guard Producer, director, writer
2006 Lage Raho Munna Bhai Producer, Screenplay Associate, lyricist
2005 Parineeta Producer, Story and Dialogue Writer, Supervising Editor
2003 Munna Bhai MBBS Producer, writer
2000 Mission Kashmir Producer, director, writer
1998 Kareeb Producer, director, writer
1994 1942: A Love Story Producer, director, writer
1989 Parinda Producer, director, writer
1985 Khamosh Producer, director, writer
1983 Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro Actor, Production Controller
1981 Sazaye Maut Director, writer
1978 An Encounter with Faces Director (Documentary)
1976 Murder At Monkey Hill Director (Diploma film), writer, Actor (Akhtar)

Favourite Films

In the 2012 Sight and Sound Polls, held every 10 years to select the greatest films of all time, contemporary directors were asked to select 10 films of their choice. Chopra picked the following films: [7]

Awards and nominations

Vidhu Vinod Chopra has received one nomination at the Academy Awards, six National Film Awards (India), and five awards from fourteen nominations at the Filmfare Awards.

Academy Awards

Filmfare Awards

National Awards

IIFA Awards

Stardust Awards

FICCI Awards

Zee Cine Awards

Tampere International Short Film Festival

Star Screen Awards

References

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