Full Name Meenu Gaur Notable work Zinda Bhaag Movies Zinda Bhaag Years active 2007-present Spouse Mazhar Zaidi | Nationality Indian Role Director Residence London, UK Name Meenu Gaur | |
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Education Lady Shri Ram College for Women Occupation Film director and Playwright Alma mater Jamia Millia Islamia, SOAS, University of London Awards Lux Style Award Best Director Film Similar People Farjad Nabi, Khurram Patras, Amna Ilyas, Naseeruddin Shah | ||
Katie chats misaff meenu gaur filmmaker zinda bhaag
Meenu Gaur is a London-based Indian director and screenwriter. She is best known for her 2013 Pakistani film Zinda Bhaag which she co-directed with Farjab Nabi. Zinda Bhaag earned her a critical recognition worldwide.
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Personal life
Meenu was born to Indian parents of Uttar Pradesh origin in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, India. She completed her schooling from Kolkata. She attended Lady Shri Ram College for Women for graduation and then joined Jamia Millia Islamia and completed her master's in film making. Later she completed a PhD in Film Studies at School of Oriental and African Studies in London. In London she met Mazhar Zaidi, a London-based Pakistani journalist at the BBC, UK; together they work on many projects and made documentaries and short films and later got married.
Zinda Bhaag
In 2013 Meenu co-directed a Pakistani film Zinda Bhaag, under her husband's film production company Matteela Films which earned her a critical acclaimed and recognition in film world. She stated in an interview telling her idea about making film:
While I was doing my PhD in filmmaking at the School of Oriental and African Studies,London, I met Mazhar Zaidi, who was a journalist with the BBC for 13 years. We bonded over our common passion "cinema" and later got married. We moved to Pakistan for what we thought would be a brief stint when Mazhar got an offer to head the current affairs television channel of Dawn newspaper. Soon, we were in Karachi, we started working on Zinda Bhaag. By then, Mazhar had already been running Matteela Films with Farjad Nabi, who is also a lawyer. Both of them have made much-appreciated documentaries (Nusrat Has Left the Building…But When and Nar Narman). I too made documentaries intermittently. Since Mazhar has a background in journalism, he is more inclined to documentaries while Farjad and I are interested in fiction. That's how we came to write and direct the movie together.
Meenu got immense praise from Pakistani film directors and critics for putting forward the Pakistani cinema into limelight again. Zinda Bhaag became one of the highest-grossing of Pakistan and has won many accolades and recognition including an official selection for Best Foreign Language Film at 86th Academy Awards however was out of the competition for the final race. Zinda Bhaag was only the third Pakistani film in 50 years to get recognition at the Oscars, after 1959's The Day Shall Dawn and 1963's The Veil.