Meghna Gulzar

Biography

Meghna Gulzar is an Indian writer, director, and producer. She is best known for directing of Bollywood film Raazi in 2018. 

After debuting as a screenwriter with her father's 1999 directorial Hu Tu Tu, Meghna directed her first film, the drama Filhaal... (2002), though did not achieve success in a direction that decade.

 Following an eight-year sabbatical, she directed the critically acclaimed Talvar (2015), which earned her Best Director nominations despite underperforming at the box office. Her first directorial profitable venture came in 2018 when she directed the patriotic thriller Raazi, which emerged as one of the highest-grossing Indian films.

 She won the Filmfare Award for Best Director for her work in the same. This established her as a director, and she next helmed the biographical drama Chhapaak (2020).

The daughter of lyricist and poet Gulzar and former actress Raakhee, Meghna Gulzar was born on 13 December 1973 in Maharashtra, Mumbai. She was named Meghna by her mother, after the river Meghna in present-day Bangladesh.

Meghna began her writing career as a freelance writer for The Times of India and the NFDC publication Cinema in India. Her poetry was published in anthologies of the Poetry Society of India. After completing her graduation in Sociology, she worked with noted filmmaker Saeed Akhtar Mirza as an assistant director.

 In 1995, she completed a short course in filmmaking from the Tisch School of Arts, New York University, New York. Upon her return, she joined her father, writer-director Gulzar, as an assistant on his films Maachis and Hu Tu Tu. Meghna simultaneously began scripting her own film along with directing documentaries for Doordarshan and music videos for several music albums.

Meghna directed her first film, Filhaal, in 2002, starring former Miss Universe-turned-actress Sushmita Sen and Tabu. Her second directorial movie was Just Married in 2007. She also directed a short film Pooranmasi for Sanjay Gupta's anthology Dus Kahaniyaan, starring Amrita Singh. In 2015, Meghna directed Talvar, written by Vishal Bharadwaj and based on the 2008 Noida double murder case.[