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Shekhar Kapur

Golden Globe-winning director Shekhar Kapur makes lush, international period films -- such as Elizabeth and The Four Feathers -- and Indian hits like Mr. India and Bandit Queen. Most recently, Kapur's short film "Passages"" is part of the October 2009 film anthology New York, I Love You. 

Meet Shekhar Kapur

Shekhar Kapur is a visionary filmmaker and storyteller who works at the intersection of art, myth and activism.

Golden Globe-winning director Shekhar Kapur makes lush, international period films -- such as Elizabeth and The Four Feathers -- and Indian hits like Mr. India and Bandit Queen. Most recently, Kapur's short film "Passages"" is part of the October 2009 film anthology New York, I Love You. Also this October, he sat on the judging panel for 1 Minute to Save the World, a competition for short films about climate change. (And yes, last summer, he was a judge on India's Got Talent.)

His forthcoming film Paani – the hindi word for water – explores mumbai's shrinking supply of water and its distribution underworld. equally at home in hollywood and Bollywood, he's also a comics mogul; in 2006 he co-founded Virgin Comics as a venue for turning Indian and Hindu myths into pop-culture icons. For the company, now reorganized as Liquid Comics, he cocreated the series Ramayan 3392 A.D., based on the Ramayana. His newest Liquid series: Devi.

Born of parents from a generation that was caught the in the wave of optimism of a newly Independent India, but confronted by the harsh realities of being refugees from their homeland (now Pakistan) Shekhar often attributes his essentially nomadic lifestyle to a never ending search for his roots he inherited from his parents.

Questioning the structured existence of his early years spent as a professional Accountant, Management Consultant and Economist in the UK, he set off in search of a life of adventure. Since then he has been a Chat Show Host in the UK, an Actor in India, a Writer, Futurist and speaker at forums all over the world on the future of technology. He has a number of business interests in New Media, which he believes is finally encouraging the 'democracy of information and thought'. He has also created popular comic books, animation films and characters. He is an avid climber and diver.

He has also dabbled (as he calls it) in directing feature length films and a number of shorts. He is most famous for Oscar winning films like Elizabeth, Golden Age, Bandit Queen and Four Feathers. In India he is best known for his genre' of populist films like Masoom and Mr India.

Currently his energies are focused on the environment, with Water as a passion. His new film Paani (Water in Hindi) is a peek into the near future of a Mega City where scarcity of water has led to a civil war, as water shortage is being used as a weapon of social and economic control.

"I am still the little boy that looked at the night sky and cried because he could not imagine 'forever', but still searching", is what Shekhar says about himself.