Shyam Benegal is a film director, screenwriter, and documentary filmmaker. Often regarded as the pioneer of parallel cinema, he is widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers post-1970s. He has received eighteen National Film Awards, and in 2005, he was honoured with the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, India's highest award in the field of cinema. Benegal's first four feature films Ankur (1973), Nishant (1975), Manthan (1976) and Bhumika (1977) made him a pioneer of the new-wave film movement of that period.