Umesh Vinayak Kulkarni is a

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India **Marathi people (Uttar Pradesh), the Marathi people in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Mar ...

film director. He is an alumnus of the Film and Television Institute of India ( FTII),

Pune Pune ( ; , ISO 15919, ISO: ), previously spelled in English as Poona (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1978), is a city in the state of Maharashtra in the Deccan Plateau, Deccan plateau in Western ...

. He is known for Marathi films such as '' Valu'' (The Wild Bull), '' Vihir'' (The Well), ''

Deool ''Deool'' () is a 2011 Indian Marathi language, Marathi comedy directed by Umesh Vinayak Kulkarni. The film stars Girish Kulkarni, Nana Patekar, Dilip Prabhawalkar, Sharvani Pillai, Sonali Kulkarni in lead roles. The film is about the effect of ...

'' (The Temple) and ''

Highway A highway is any public or private road or other public way on land. It includes not just major roads, but also other public roads and rights of way. In the United States, it is also used as an equivalent term to controlled-access highway, or ...

''. He is known for short films such as ''Girni'' (Grinding Machine), ''Three of Us'', ''Vilay'', ''Gaarud'' and ''Darshan''. He received a National Film award for Best Debut Director for his short film ''Girni''. ''Deool'' (The Temple), his feature film, received a National Film Award for best film in the year 2011.

Early life and career

Umesh Kulkarni was born on 6 December 1976 in Pune to Vinayak and Vishakha Kulkarni. He graduated in commerce from BMCC, Pune besides acquiring a law degree. He joined FTII Pune in February 2000. Kulkarni also directed short films such as ''Girni, Three of Us, Vilay'' and ''Gaarud''. ''Girni'' won the National Film Award for the Best Non Feature Film. His first feature film '' Valu'' was a significant film for Marathi cinema. It is amongst the few Marathi films that kept the box office collection on an upward swing and also traveled to more than 30 International film festivals, including the

Berlin film festival The Berlin International Film Festival (), usually called the Berlinale (), is an annual film festival held in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festival has been held every February since 1978 and is one of Europ ...

. He then went on to work on features like '' Vihir'' and ''

. Vihir'' was featured in

and

Rotterdam International Film Festival International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) is an annual film festival held at the end of January in various locations in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, focused on independent and experimental films. The inaugural festival took place in June 1972, ...

2010, the Netherlands. ''Deool'' won the 59th

National Film Awards The National Film Awards are awards for artistic and technical merit given for "Excellence within the Cinema of India, Indian film industry". Established in 1954, it has been administered, along with the International Film Festival of India ...

for Best Feature Film, Best Actor (

Girish Kulkarni Girish Pandurang Kulkarni (born 25 November 1977) is an Indian actor, writer, and producer. He is a recipient of two National Film Awards namely, National Film Award for Best Actor in 2011 for his performance in '' Deool'' and National Film Aw ...

) and Best Dialogue (Girish Kulkarni).

Filmography

* Divine Sight (Short) (2003) * Girni (Short) (2004) * Valu (2008) * Vihir (2009) *

(2011) * Dhappa (2019) (co-producer) * Indian Predator: Murder in a Courtroom (2022)

References

External links

* *https://web.archive.org/web/20130412173702/http://www.ftiindia.com/students_awards.html *http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/marathi/movies/news/Highway-Huma-Qureshi-Girish-Kulkarni-Umesh-Kulkarni-Tisca-Chopra-Taare-Zameen-Par/articleshow/40342139.cms? *http://www.filmimpressions.com/home/2012/11/interview-umesh-kulkarni-part-1.html {{DEFAULTSORT:Kulkarni, Umesh Vinayak Film directors from Maharashtra Living people 1976 births Directors who won the Best Feature Film National Film Award