Shekhar Kapur (born 6 December 1945) is a critically acclaimed Indian film director, producer and actor. He rose to popularity with the Hindi language movie Bandit Queen based upon the life of Phoolan Devi, an infamous Indian outlaw and from TV Series Named Pradhanmantri (TV Series)(Telecast on ABP News). His historical biopics of Queen Elizabeth (Elizabeth and its sequel The Golden Age) garnered 7 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actress for Cate Blanchett.
His future projects include Long Walk to Freedom, Paani, The Last Full Measure. A third episode in the Queen Elizabeth series is planned. According to screenwriter John Rogers, the success of Elizabeth led to Kapur being tapped to work on an adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy, but the project was eventually shelved. Kapur also tentatively planned to helm a motion picture account of the life of the Buddha, entitled Buddha, but the plans were later dropped for unstated reasons. He also planned to adapt Larklight, a book by Philip Reeve. Kapur also traveled to Yerevan, Armenia to explore the possibility of making a film about the Armenian Genocide.
In an interview with Associated Content, Kapur announced he is no longer attached to Larklight.
He is set to direct Paani. The film reported to star Sushant Singh Rajput. The film will be produced by Aditya Chopra. Its music will be composed by A. R. Rahman.The announcement for the film was made at the 63rd Cannes Film Festival in 2010. He has also tied up with Keyur Patel, Chairman of Fuse Global for the co-funding of Paani, who is one of the major financiers in Hollywood when it comes to Mega-projects.
