Sanjay Leela Bhansali (born 24 February 1963) is an Indian film director, producer, screenwriter and music composer in Hindi cinema. He is known for films of great visual richness, with enormous sets, elaborate costumes and song sequences staged like paintings: Devdas, Black, Bajirao Mastani, Padmaavat and Gangubai Kathiawadi. He has won several National Film Awards.
Quick Facts
| Full name | Sanjay Leela Bhansali |
| Born | 24 February 1963, Bombay |
| Age | 63 |
| Education | Film and Television Institute of India, Pune (editing) |
| Occupation | Director, producer, screenwriter, composer |
| Notable works | Khamoshi, Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, Devdas, Black, Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela, Bajirao Mastani, Padmaavat, Gangubai Kathiawadi, Heeramandi |
| Awards | National Film Awards, including Best Direction (2016); Padma Shri (2015) |
Early Life
He was born in Bombay into a Gujarati family and grew up in a single room in a chawl at Bhuleshwar. His father, Navin Bhansali, was a film producer whose pictures failed; he took to drink, and the household knew real hardship. His mother, Leela, a dancer, kept the family by sewing clothes. He added her name to his own in her honour.
The cramped, colourless room of his childhood, he has said, is the reason his films are so large and so full of colour.
Training
He studied film editing at the Film and Television Institute in Pune. He then worked as an assistant to the director Vidhu Vinod Chopra on Parinda and 1942: A Love Story, for which he directed the songs.
Career
First films
Khamoshi: The Musical (1996), about the hearing daughter of deaf parents, was praised and lost money. Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (1999), a love triangle with Salman Khan, Aishwarya Rai and Ajay Devgn, was a great success and set his style.
Devdas and Black
Devdas (2002), with Shah Rukh Khan, was the most expensive Indian film made to that time and was shown at the Cannes festival. Black (2005), in which Amitabh Bachchan plays the teacher of a deaf and blind girl, had no songs at all and won the National Award for the best Hindi film.
Two failures followed, Saawariya (2007) and Guzaarish (2010).
The historical trilogy
With Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone he made Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela (2013), Bajirao Mastani (2015), which won him the National Award for Best Direction, and Padmaavat (2018).
The Padmaavat controversy
Padmaavat, about a legendary Rajput queen and the Sultan Alauddin Khalji, was attacked before anyone had seen it by a Rajput organisation which claimed it distorted history. He was assaulted on the set in Jaipur in January 2017, another set was burnt, and bounties were offered for harm to him and his lead actress. Several states tried to ban the film; the Supreme Court overruled them. Released with a changed title, it was a very large hit.
Recent work
Gangubai Kathiawadi (2022), with Alia Bhatt as a brothel madam of 1960s Bombay, opened at the Berlin festival and won five National Awards. Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar (2024), a series for Netflix about the courtesans of pre-Partition Lahore, was his first work for streaming. His next film, Love and War, with Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt and Vicky Kaushal, has been in production since 2024.
Music
Since Guzaarish he has composed the music for his own films, and won a National Award for the songs of Padmaavat. In 2008 he directed the opera Padmavati in Paris.
Method
He is known as a demanding perfectionist who shoots many takes and designs every frame. Critics who find his work overwrought grant its craftsmanship.
Personal Life
He is unmarried and lives in Mumbai. His sister, Bela Sehgal, is a film editor, and her daughter, Sharmin Segal, an actress who appeared in Heeramandi.
Featured image: Sanjay Leela Bhansali. Photo by ARCHANA MALPANI, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
