Manish Jha

Manish Jha Biography

Manish Jha is an Indian film director and screenwriter. His noted works are A Very Very Silent Film (2001) and Matrubhoomi-A Nation Without Women (2003). He has also directed the segment "And It Rained" of 2010 Bollywood movie, Mumbai cutting. Another noted work as a director is Anwar released in 2007. His movie ‘A very very silent film’ won Jury Prize for the Best Short Film at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival. Mathrubhumi has won several international awards in the year 2003 including FIPRESCI Award in Parallel Section at the Venice Film Festival, Audience Award for Best Film at River to River Florence Indian Film Festival, Audience Award for Best Film at the Kozlin Film Festival and Audience Award for Best Foreign Film at Thessaloniki Film Festival. This movie also received a nomination for Golden Alexander (Best Film) at Thessaloniki Film Festival.

Manish was born on May 3, 1978 in Narkatiaganj, Bihar. He was brought up in Delhi. He completed graduation in English from Ramjas College, Delhi University. He joined its theatre group as well, as he wanted to pursue a career in entertainment industry. After studies, he moved to Mumbai and started his career as an assistant director for television serials. His intension was to get a big break to movies. But he didn’t receive any break and hence putting money from his own pockets, he amed his first short film, A Very Very Silent Film (2001). This short film later received Jury Prize for the Best Short Film at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival.

His feature film debut happened with Mathrubhoomi in 2003, which accumulated numerous international awards including audience awards. His next movie Anwar, released in 2007 was about stereotyping of Muslims in the post 9/11 era. Mumbai cutting was an anthology film of 11 directors and was the closing film of 10th Osian's Cinefan Festival in Delhi. He also directed a yoga DVD, Shilpa’s Yoga (2008) for actress Shilpa Shetty, location set at coastal belts of Kerala.

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Updated: March 14, 2014