Celebrating the best of the best

Amidst the everyday hustle and bustle of Colombo, a new enthusiasm and energy had been added as the city gets set to stage one of the biggest events of the year – the 11th IIFA awards.

Here we bring you details of those vying to top the list on the night of glitz and glamour.

The Best Director is …

Rajkumar Hirani
(3 Idiots)

Hirani is a National Award and Filmfare Award winning Indian Director born in 1965. He is a screenwriter and film editor of Hindi films too, best known for the films Munna Bhai MBBS (2003), Lage Raho Munnabhai (2006) and 3 Idiots (2009).

Rajkumar had been trying his luck as film editor for many years. Bad experiences forced him to shift to advertising, but gradually established as a director and producer of advertising films. He was also seen in a Fevicol Ad where some guys and elephants are trying to pull and break a fevicol plank saying Jor laga ke Haisha.

He was doing good in advertisement business but he wanted to make movies so he took break from advertisement and started working with Vidhu Vinod Chopra. He worked on promos and trailers for 1942: A Love Story. He edited promos for Kareeb.
 

Vishal Bhardwaj
(Kaminey)

Bhardwaj came to Mumbai to become a music composer, and took to directing movies only to create the opportunity to compose music. His interest in film direction kindled after watching the retrospective of Polish director Krzysztof Kie?lowski during a film festival in Kerala.

His first directorial debut was children’s film Makdee which was critically acclaimed. He then made the first of his Shakespearean adaptation, Maqbool, based on Macbeth. This was followed up by another children’s film, The Blue Umbrella based on Ruskin Bond’s story of the same name.

This film also met with critical acclaim throughout.
 

R. Balakrishnan
(Paa)

R. Balakrishnan is better known as R. Balkii, who is an Indian filmmaker of Hindi films. He is more famous as the creator of Cheeni Kum and Paa. He is an ad filmmaker turned director. His debut as director with Cheeni Kum starring Amitabh Bachchan and Tabu gained much appreciation from the critics as well as public. His movie Paa with Producer Sunil Manchanda was released on December 4, 2009 starring Amitabh Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, and Vidya Balan.

Paa is based on the life of 13-year old Auro (Amitabh Bachchan’s character) suffering from a deadly disease Progeria. Abhishek Bachchan who in real life is the son of Amitabh Bachchan acted as his father in the movie.
 

Ayan Mukherjee
(Wake Up Sid)

Ayan Mukherjee is the son of Bengali film actor Deb Mukherjee. He is also the nephew of Joy Mukherjee and the first cousin of Kajol and Tanisha Mukherjee and second cousin of Rani Mukherjee.

Mukherji first worked as an assistant to Ashutosh Gowariker, who is his brother in law, on the 2004 film, Swades, and later to Johar on Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna. After taking a short break from filmmaking, Mukherji wrote the screenplay for Wake Up Sid and gave it to Johar who decided it should become a film.

 

Imitiaz Ali
(Love Aaj Kal)

Imtiaz was born into a Muslim family and brought up in Jamshedpur, where he studied at D.B.M.S. English School. His relatives own cinema halls in Jamshedpur - Star Talkies, Jamshedpur Talkies and Karim Talkies. Later he attended Hindu College in Delhi, where he took part in college theatre.

After about seven years of doing so, he moved on to Bollywood films starting with Socha Na Tha in 2005 with Abhay Deol and Ayesha Takia. In 2004, he also made a cameo appearance in Anurag Kashyap’s Black Friday. Despite its box office failure, the movie Socha Na Tha won critical acclaim.

His next film, Jab We Met, starring Shahid Kapoor and Kareena Kapoor, was a major hit at the Bollywood box office.

Anurag Kashyap
(Dev D)

Born in 1972 Anurag is a film director and screenwriter. As a director, he is known for Black Friday (2004), a controversial 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. His feature film debut Black Friday won the Grand Jury Prize at the third Annual Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles (2005), and was a nominee for the Golden Leopard (Best Film) at the 57th Locarno International Film Festival (2004).

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