Shonali Bose

Shonali Bose Biography

Shonali Bose is a National award winning film maker associated with Bollywood. She is known for offbeat movies and is also known as a producer and screenwriter. Till now, she has directed two movies – Ammu, her debut Film in 2005 and the most recent Hindi-English bilingual - Margarita with a Straw in 2015, and both these movies were highly praised by critics. She also served as the assistant director, scriptwriter and producer of highly acclaimed film, Chittagong, which marked the directorial debut of her husband - Bedabrata Pain. 

Her debut film, Ammu earned National award for best film in English language. She scripted and produced both these movies as well. She is married to former NASA Scientist who is into filmmaking right now. She has been associated with her husband as a co-writer and co-producer Bedabrata Pain for the National Award winning movie – Chittagong – a non-fiction page from Indian Freedom Struggle Movement of East Bengal. The couple has been associated together for their movies, since Ammu in 2005.

She was born in Kolkata in 1965. She met Bedabrata Pain for the first time while doing her master's degree in Political Science from Columbia University, New York in the early 1990s. Bedabrata was doing his M.S and PhD in the same university then. Shonali was involved as a stage actress since her school and college days, and was inclined towards arts. After studies, she has worked in Manhattan associated with television shows. She has also done a few narrative films and documentaries, which were shown in film festivals. The Gendarme Is Here and Undocumented are her narrative films.

In 2005 she marked her career as a producer, director and screenwriter through Indian movie, Ammu. Her recent release is revolutionary queer film - Margarita with a Straw with Kalki Koechlin playing the role of a girl with cerebral palsy, who explores her sexuality despite being a challenged person. The movie was shown at numerous film festivals and won many awards also. It was the only Indian film to win an award at TIFF in 2015. Shonali Bose lost her 16-year-old son Ishan in a freak accident involving an electric razor in 2010. She has one more child.

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Updated: March 27, 2016