Onir

Onir Biography

Onir is an experimental film maker and editor of Bollywood most known for the movie, My brother … Nikhil with pivot roles played by Juhi Chawla and Sanjay Suri. This movie was one of the first mainstream Bollywood movies to deal with AIDS and same-sex relationships. Later he has directed movies like Bas Ek Pal (2006), Sorry Bhai! (2008) and I Am (2011). As a scriptwriter, his noted works are My Brother... Nikhil, I Am and Bas ek pal. Before entering direction ventures, he has also edited a few movies of which National award winning Daman: A Victim of Marital Violence is the most significant work.

Onir’s real name is Anirban Dhar and he was born in Thimphu, Bhutan. His father Aparesh Dhar and mother Manjushree are of Bengali origin. Thus, though being a Bhutani, he preferred to be an Indian since childhood. Onir studied comparative literature from Kolkata and took a few film classes at Chitrabani film school. He graduated from Jadavpur University in 1989 and received a scholarship to study films in Berlin. So, he didn’t go to post graduation studies. Once returned he worked as an editor, script writer, art director, music album producer and lyricist for movies. He worked as assistant to Kalpana in Daman: A Victim of Marital Violence (2001) and did the editing job as well.

While he was working on a documentary film of a sportsperson cum AIDS patient, his story inspired to write the script of a movie which he directed too. The movie was My brother … Nikhil. Nikhil was screened at several international film festivals and Juhi Chawla received an IIFA nomination for her role too. Juhi played the sister’s role of Sanjay Suri. Earlier, they have together done a hit movie, Jhankar beats where they worked as married couple. His second project with Sanjay Suri was released the following year which had Urmila in the lead role. Though the movie failed at box office, he got nomination for the Best Director Critic's Award at the Global Indian Film Awards for the film.

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Updated: March 14, 2014