Udai Singh Pawar

Biography

Udai Singh Pawar is a filmmaker and screenwriter based in Mumbai, India.

Most recently, Pawar was the Writer and the Director of the Netflix Original Feature Film Upstarts, which has been streaming since October 2019.

Before becoming an independent Director, he had been the Associate Director of the Akshay Kumar-starrer Airlift, made by Raja Krishna Menon, and even earlier, had been the Chief/1st Assistant Director to veteran film director Sudhir Mishra for five years, on multiple projects, such as the Irrfan Khan-starrer Yeh Saali Zindagi and the Arjun Rampal-starrer Inkaar.

Pawar is a Physics graduate from IIT Kanpur, with a background in blending technology and art. Before shifting to film-making in 2009, Udai had worked extensively in technology research, with multiple patents and publications to his name.

He reportedly had to stand and wait on the road outside famous Bollywood director Sudhir Mishra’s office to meet him. Udai then assisted Mishra for five years on multiple films such as the Irrfan Khan-starrer Yeh Saali Zindagi and the Arjun Rampal-starrer Inkaar.[4] After this, he worked with Raja Krishna Menon as the Associate Director on the box-office-superhit film Airlift which starred Akshay Kumar. There, he also directed the B-Unit and did a lot of the action choreography.

Other venues like Outlook (Indian magazine), News18, The Quint, The New Indian Express, SonyBIZ Asia, Common Sense Media, etc., also covered it positively with an average of 3 to 3.5 stars, and even some foreign reviewers. It was also nominated for Radio City (Indian radio station) Hitlist web awards for Best Web Film of 2019.

The film was also hailed by the Indian startup and business community, with the business media, National TV, and social media speaking covering it, including some of India's most successful entrepreneurs tweeting about it, including Infosys founder Nandan Nilekani and Biotech industry leader Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw.