Amitabh Bachchan Pays Heartfelt Tribute to Shyam Benegal: Film Industry Mourns

Amitabh Bachchan Pays Heartfelt Tribute to Shyam Benegal: The eulogies continue to be poured in since the sad demise of the legendary filmmaker Shyam Benegal, who passed away on Monday at the age of 90. Benegal breathed his last at 6:38 pm at Wockhardt Hospital in Mumbai, where he was hospitalized for chronic kidney disease.

By going to his X account, Amitabh Bachchan expressed Tuesday how sad as he wrote, “T 5233 - We have lost another stalwart of the Film Industry today .. Shyam Benegal passes away .. Prayers and condolences.”

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Sharing several films worked with Benegal was actress, Shabana Azmi, through a story on her Instagram page about the funeral arrangements. The last rites took place at 2 pm on Tuesday at the Shivaji Park Electric Crematorium in Dadar, Mumbai.

Nafisa Ali, Karisma Kapoor, and Ajay Devgn were other celebrities who remembered the legend and hailed the innumerable contributions he made to Indian cinema.

Some of his most acclaimed films such as Ankur, Nishant, Manthan, and Bhumika placed him among the pioneers of the Indian parallel cinema movement in the 1970s and 1980s. The director walked away with the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi seven times and received the V. Shantaram Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018.

Shyam Benegal, born on 14 December 1934 in a Konkani-speaking Chitrapur Saraswat Brahmin family of Hyderabad, did a lot of work especially with actors from FTII and NSD, including Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Smita Patil, Shabana Azmi, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, and Amrish Puri.

His films made a deep impression on audiences by addressing socio-political issues of the time with an extraordinary depth of treatment. His last project, Mujib: The Making of a Nation (2023), was a co-production of both India and Bangladesh, about the life of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the father of the nation for Bangladesh. Shot in both countries during the period of the COVID-19 pandemic, the biographical film added yet another feather to his already illustrious cap.

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Apart from feature films, this man has put in significant work in documentaries and television. Iconic for both Bharat Ek Khoj and Samvidhaan, they set benchmarks in Indian television.

He also held the position of Director of the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) during 1980-1986 and was a member of prestigious juries such as the 14th Moscow International Film Festival (1985) and the 35th National Film Awards (1988).

Subtle but present in his work also were documentaries and television. His two iconic series Bharat Ek Khoj and Samvidhaan were the creams of the crop in Indian television.

He has also been Director of the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) from 1980-1986, besides being a member of prestigious juries such as the 14th Moscow International Film Festival (1985) and the 35th National Film Awards (1988).

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