Samir Chanda

Samir Chanda Biography

Samir Chanda was a National award winning Indian art director and production designer who worked for Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil and Bengali. His debut movie as an independent art director was Subhash Ghai’s Ram Lakhan. After Ram Lakhan, Malayalam movie Yodha (1992) was his first noted commercial project, which happened to be the second work of Sangeeth Sivan and A. R. Rahman too. This movie is regarded a cult classic for its screenplay, direction as well as art direction. Sameer has received four National awards for best art direction till now. Movies are Rukmavathi ki haveli (1992), Rudali (1993), Netaji Subhash Chandrabose: The forgotten hero (2004) and Delhi-6 (2009). He also directed a Bengali film, Ek Nadir Galpo in 2008, lead role played by Mithun Chakraborty.

Samir was a trained painter from Government College of Art & Craft, Kolkata. He later moved to Mumbai where he started working as assistant to Nitish Roy, for the movies of Shyam Benegal and Mrinal Sen. He has worked as the assistant of Mandi, critically noted movie. As an independent art director, his first movie was Ram Lakhan. Later he became a part of Indian film industry and a few of his noted works include - Yodha (1992), Dil Se (1998), Guru (2007), Omkara (2006), Rang De Basanti (2006), and Raavan (2010). He received Filmfare awards for Omkara and Guru.

He was a hot favourite of both art and commercial directors of the industry including Shyam Benegal, Subhash Ghai, Sangeeth Sivan and Mani Ratnam. In 1998, he received Kerala state awards for best art director for the movie, Daya. Other noted Malayalam movies include – Gandharvam and Nirnayam. His noted Bollywood movies include – Kaminey, Well done Abba, 7 Khoon maaf, Zubeidaa, Krishh and Dil se. He has also done a couple of Bengali movies – Faltu and Kantatar. He died in Mumbai on August 18, 2011, at the age of 53.

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Updated: January 27, 2014