Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Shyam Benegal, the 90-year-old legendary filmmaker, who passed away in Mumbai on Monday, had a long association with Bhopal and Madhya Pradesh.

He had visited the city many times. He had served on Bharat Bhavan Trust and on the board of directors of the Madhya Pradesh Film Development Corporation. The Madhya Pradesh Government had conferred Kishore Kumar Samman on him in 2005.   

A ‘Shyam Benegal Prasang,’ was organised at Bharat Bhawan in 1991-92, which was attended by well-known film personalities like Govind Nihlani, Basu Bhattacharya, Chidananda Das Gupta etc.

Director of Vikramaditya Shodh Peeth, Shriram Tiwari told the Free Press that Madhya Pradesh used to have a Film Development Corporation (MPFDC), which was shut in 1995.  “When I was the General manager of the Corporation we used to publish a journal titled  ‘Patkatha’ focused on classical cinema. We had dedicated one issue of the journal to Benegal, which carried a long interview with him,” he said.

Benegal was undoubtedly the greatest Hindi film producer-director, even though Hindi was not his mother tongue, Tiwari said.

Benegal was also a part of an initiative by the Digvijay Singh Government to provide access to education to residents of the rural areas using satellites. However, the project  could not take off.

Sunil Shukla, a filmmaker, said “Fresh from the FTII, I worked under him during the shooting for Bharat Ek Khoj and learned many a finer nuance of filmmaking from the great man,”

“Fresh from the FTII, I worked under him during the shooting for Bharat Ek Khoj and learned many a finer nuance of filmmaking from the great man,” he said.

According to Shukla, Benegal was a stickler for discipline and all his shoots were planned in advance. “He was a superb editor. Even when four soundtracks were playing simultaneously, he could concentrate on one and point out deficiencies in it,” he said.

Bharat Bhavan’s Chief administrator Prem Shankar Shukla said that he was impressed by Benegal’s humility during a meeting of the Bharat Bhavan Trust at a Mumbai hotel. Writer Ashok Manwani said that Benegal would always be remembered by India cine-lovers as a pioneer of parallel cinema.