Gauri Shinde

Gauri Shinde Biography

Gauri Shinde is a female film director of Indian film industry. She is also an ad film director who works in association with her husband, film maker and Chairman and Chief Creative Officer of the advertising agency Lowe Lintas, R. Balki. She married R. Balki in 2007. Gauri is most known for her debut Bollywood movie as a film director – English Vinglish (bilingual) which marked the successful comeback of Bollywood queen of late 1980’s and 1990’s – Sridevi after 14 year sabbatical. This movie bagged almost all ‘Best debut director’ awards at Indian award functions including Filmfare, IIFA, Max Stardust and Zee Cine Awards. Her short film ‘Oh Man!’ was showed at Berlin Film Festival 2001.

Shinde was born in Pune in 1974. Her schooling was done at her hometown itself and later she took graduation from Symbiosis Institute of Mass Communication, Pune. She thought of making movies towards the end of her studies. She did her internship with documentary director Siddharth Kak at Mumbai. She also worked in advertising agencies including Lowe Lintas and has made over 100 advertising films and short films.

She debut film direction with ‘English Vinglish’ in 2012. The movie was originally shot in Hindi and later shot a few sequences in Tamil. Amitabh Bachchan played a cameo appearance in the Hindi version, while the same role was done by Ajith in Tamil and dubbed Telugu version. This movie was marked as the best comeback of an actress in Indian cinema in the recent times. The movie was premiered at Toronto Film Festival 2012. The director says this movie is her way to say sorry and thanks to her mother, couldn't converse in English. Her mother Vaishali who hails from Kolhapur has been her real inspiration to make this movie.

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Updated: March 24, 2014