Baba Azmi

Baba Azmi Biography

Sayyid Baba Azmi is a cinematographer of Indian film industry associated with Bollywood and Telugu film industry. Not many readers know the fact that he belongs to the legendary Akhtar-Azmi film family. He is the son of legendary Urdu writer and lyricist – Kaifi Azmi. His sister Shabana Azmi is also a doyen of Indian acting field and winner of four National awards for best actress. His brother-in-law Javed Akhtar is also a famous poet, lyricist and screenwriter of Bollywood. He is married to noted film actress Tanvi Azmi. As a cameraman and cinematographer, Babu is associated with many hit movies of Bollywood. A few of them include - Arjun, Beta, Dil, Anokha Bandhan, Tezaab, Mr. India, Akele Hum Akele Tum and Pukar.

As a teenager he had no idea about what to do. He was not sure enough to join film industry or not. It was his cousin Ishan arya who encouraged him to join film industry, behind camera. He started his career in mid 1970s, assisting his cousin in Telugu movies at Hyderabad. He started off as a light boy. Once there, he got hooked onto cinematography. He assisted his cousin in about 12 Telugu movies. He bagged his first film as an independent cinematographer in early 1980s. The movie was Bapusa’s Arjun with Sunny Deol and Dimple Kapadia in pivotal roles. Baba regards Bapusa as his guru, under whom he learnt a lot about cinema.

He has been associated with film director Indra Kumar for many movies like Beta, Dil etc. Mr. India is one of his best movies as an independent cinematographer. He has also worked in many hit movies of Anil Kapoor like Beta, Tezaab etc. Baba is currently planning to make his directorial debut with Farhan Akhtar’s production house.

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Updated: July 23, 2014