Rituparno Ghosh

Rituparno Ghosh, who lived from 1963 to 2013, was an Indian film director, actor, writer and lyricist from Kolkata who helped bring contemporary Bengali cinema to wider audiences. After an economics degree he worked as a copywriter at an advertising agency, where he became known for short, memorable Bengali campaign slogans in the 1980s. He made his directorial debut with Hirer Angti in 1992, and his second feature, Unishe April in 1994, won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film and brought him recognition. Dahan in 1997 won him the National Film Award for Best Screenplay. He drew on the work of Satyajit Ray and Rabindranath Tagore, made a documentary on Tagore titled Jeevan Smriti, and won many national awards across his career. He was one of the openly gay figures of Indian cinema and is regarded as an icon of the queer community in India. He died in Kolkata in 2013.