Zoya Akhtar | The flourishing Indian Filmmaker

Daughter of famous poet Javed Akhtar, Zoya Akhtar is an Indian filmmaker and screenwriter working since 1999. Also, she has founded Tiger baby films, a film production company with her friend Reema kagti. She is the recipient of numerous awards and recognitions, including six Filmfare awards. Her most notable works include Luck by Chance, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, Bombay Talkies, Dil Dhadakne Do and Gully Boy.

Early Life

On 14 October 1972, Zoya Akhtar was born in the City of Dreams Mumbai. She is the daughter of Javed Akhtar, a screenwriter, poet and lyricist and Honey, a screenwriter as well. Also, Actress Shabana Azmi is her stepmother.
After completing higher education, Zoya Akhtar attended St. Xavier’s College for an undergraduate course in arts. Followithisich this, she enrolled at New York University Tisch School of arts for learning film production.

Career

Zoya Akhtar began her career with a music video called Prince of Bullet. It was for a rock band called Pentagram, and she worked as co-director. Apart from that, Zoya served as a casting director for the film Split Wide Open & Dil Chahta Hai. 
Zoya’s directorial debut happened with the film Luck By Chance in 2009. The film starred her brother Farhan Akhtar & Konkona Sen Sharma in lead roles. The story showed a struggling actor who enters the film industry and gains breakthroughs. It did not do well at Box office but received positive reviews from both audience and critics.

Initial Success

After two years, in 2011, Zoya Akhtar gave directions for the film Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara. The film was a comedy-drama with a cast of five amazing actors, Hrithik Roshan, Farhan Akhtar, Abhay Deol, Katrina Kaif and Kalki Koechlin. It emerged as a great commercial success of the year. Over the budget of 450 million, it flooded the box office with a collection of 1.53 billion. As a result, Zoya gained her first award, Filmfare Award for Best Director.

Breakthrough

For the next venture, Zoya teamed up with the directors Anurag Kashyap, Dibakar Banerjee and Karan Johar in 2011. They released the film Bombay Talkies, created for celebrating 100 years of Indian Cinema. This first anthology film was screened at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. As a result, it emerged as a tremendous success of the year. Again, this film flooded the box office with earnings of 150 crores.

Zoya’s next direction was the 2015 family drama film Dil Dhadakne Do. Starring Priyanka Chopra, Ranveer Singh and Anushka Sharma, the film performed very well both commercially and financially. The same year, Zoya founded the Indian film production company Tiger Baby Films with her friend Reema Kagti.

Further success

Later, In 2018, Zoya again teamed up with previous directors. They made their second anthology film, lust stories which premiered on Netflix. Following this, She directed the musical drama film Gully Boy featuring Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt. Collecting 286 crores, the film emerged as a major success. As a result, Zoya Akhtar was again honoured with the Best Director award at Filmfare. Recently, In 2019, Zoya directed a part of Ghost stories, a horror anthology. It premiered on Netflix in 2020.

Also Read: Mira Nair | Padma Bhushan award-winning Indian-American Filmmaker