Hamara Bajaj

About the film

Shoojit Sircar (born c. 1966–1967) is an Indian filmmaker, director and producer known for his work in Hindi films. He has received several awards, including three National Film Awards and two Filmfare Awards from five nominations.

Sircar made his directorial debut with the romantic war drama Yahaan (2005). He achieved critical success with the top-grossing social romantic comedy Vicky Donor (2012) for which he received the National Film Award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment. He followed it a year later with the political action thriller Madras Cafe (2013).

Early and personal life

Sircar was born into a Bengali family in Kolkata, in the Indian state of West Bengal. He completed his schooling from Kendriya Vidyalaya Barrackpore Airforce in 1985 and graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce from Shaheed Bhagat Singh College at the University of Delhi. Sircar lost both his parents in 2004; his father died due to cancer and his mother from a brain stroke.

In his early years, he worked as an accountant at Le Meridien hotel in Delhi as well advertisement industry. He aspired for a career in films after attending the International Film Festival of India in Delhi. He credits the American documentary film Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam and Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali as the two films that inspired him to start a career in cinema. In the early 1990s, Sircar formed a theatre group named Act One, which had as troupe members Manoj Bajpayee, Piyush Mishra and Ashish Vidyarthi.

Sircar is married to Jhuma Sircar, and a parent to two daughters, Koyna and Anannya Sircar. He lives with his family in Kolkata. Sircar is also a football enthusiast and is part of the All Stars Football Club, a celebrity football club that raises money for charity.

Career

Sircar made his directorial debut in 2005 with the romantic war drama Yahaan, which featured Jimmy Sheirgill and Minissha Lamba in a love story set in war-savaged Kashmir. The film received mixed critical reviews and poor box-office revenues upon release. His second film, titled Shoebite, starring Amitabh Bachchan remains unreleased as of 2023 due to a copyright legal battle between Percept Picture Company and UTV Motion Pictures.

The debacle related to Shoebite led Sircar to establish his own film production company in 2007 with Ronnie Lahiri, naming it Rising Sun Films, under which all of his directorial films would be made. Sircar's first home production was the Bengali-language drama film Aparajita Tumi (2012) which was directed by Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury.

Sircar rose to prominence in 2012 with the critically and commercially successful social romantic comedy Vicky Donor. It marked the Hindi film debut of Ayushmann Khurrana and Yami Gautam. The film, set against the background of sperm donation and infertility within a Bengali-Punjabi household grossed ₹66.32 crore worldwide, against a budget of ₹15 crore. It won the National Film Award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment, in addition to his first nominations for the Filmfare Award for Best Film and Best Director. Sircar stated that he made the film because he wanted to explore "a light-hearted look at the taboo attached to infertility and artificial insemination." Before filming began, he researched the plot themes for over three years. The film was remade in Telugu as Naruda Donoruda (2016), and in Tamil as Dharala Prabhu (2020).

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