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Anupama Chopra

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Anupama Chopra (née Chandra) is an Indian author, journalist and film critic who served as the festival director of the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival from 2015 to 2023.[1] She is also the founder and editor of the now-defunct digital platform Film Companion, which offered a curated look at cinema with an emphasis on Indian film.[2] She has written several books on Indian cinema and has been a film critic for NDTV and India Today,[3] as well as the Hindustan Times. She also hosted a weekly film review show, The Front Row With Anupama Chopra, on Star World.[4] She won the 2000 National Film Award for Best Book on Cinema for her first book Sholay: The Making of a Classic. Chopra joined the Indian iteration of the film journalism outlet The Hollywood Reporter in 2024, launched domestically in the same year by the RP Sanjiv Goenka Group.[5]

Anupama Chopra
Chopra in 2017
Born
Anupama Chandra

Calcutta, West Bengal, India
Education
Occupations
  • Author
  • journalist
  • film critic
Spouse
​
(m. 1990)​
ChildrenZuni Chopra and Agni Chopra
MotherKamna Chandra
Relatives

Early life and background

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Born as Anupama Chandra in Calcutta, India to Chandra Prasad family, she has also lived in Badayun, a city in Uttar Pradesh. Her father, Navin Chandra, was the eldest among his siblings. Anupama's grandfather, originally from Delhi, was an executive with Union Carbide in Kolkata. Her mother, Kamna Chandra, was a scriptwriter who wrote dialogue for such films as Prem Rog (1982) and Chandni (1989).[citation needed] Chopra grew up with her brother and sister in Mumbai, where her family lived in the Nepean Sea Road neighbourhood, and then in Cuffe Parade. Her sister, Tanuja Chandra, is an Indian film director and screenwriter; her brother, Vikram Chandra, is a novelist, who splits his time between California and India.[6] She also lived in Hong Kong for several years as a teenager. She graduated from St. Xavier's College, Mumbai with a BA in English Literature in 1987.[6]

Later, Chopra earned her MA in journalism from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. She won the Harrington Award for "academic excellence and promise for success in the field of magazine journalism" while at Medill. She later said, "Film journalism was untouchable at the time. Everybody was ashamed and nobody wanted to admit that I worked for movies."[6]

Career

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After her education, Chopra started her career as a film journalist and critic and over the years has written several books on films, especially Hindi cinema. She has written about the Hindi film industry since 1993 and has explored cinema in several mediums – print, television and digital. Her first book Sholay: The Making of a Classic (2000) won the 2001 National Film Award for Best Book on Cinema (India).[7] Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (The Bravehearted Will Take The Bride) (2002) was published by the British Film Institute as part of their Modern Classics Series. Her book, King of Bollywood: Shah Rukh Khan and the Seductive World of Indian Cinema, was featured on the annual "Editor's Choice" list of the New York Times Book Review.[citation needed] It was also translated into German, Indonesian and Polish.

Chopra's 2011 book First Day First Show: Writings from the Bollywood Trenches, is a compilation of her articles on Hindi cinema over two decades, published by Penguin India.[5]

Chopra's work has been published in India Today, India's largest English-language magazine. She has also written about Hindi films for various international publications such as The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Variety and Sight & Sound and is a contributing editor to Vogue India.

 
Chopra at her book launch, 2012

Chopra hosted film review show, Picture This on NDTV 24X7 news channel.[8] In 2012, she started her weekly review show called The Front Row with Anupama Chopra, on Star World, which ran until June 2014.[8][9][10] In 2013, she released two books, Freeze Frame based on the interviews with film makers and actors on the TV show,[11] and 100 Films to See before You Die based on her weekly film columns.[12] In 2014, she also did a Hindi show called 'Star Verdict' on Star Plus.

Currently[when?] she hosts Film Companion on YouTube which replaced "The Front Row With Anupama Chopra" where she critiques Hindi Film movies.[citation needed] She has written several books on cinema. Anupama's latest book, The Front Row: Conversations on Cinema published by HarperCollins is a collection of her televised interviews with both Indian Film and Hollywood personalities. She is also actively involved in works related to film festivals happening in India.

In November 2014, Chopra replaced Srinivasan Narayanan to become the festival director of the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival organized by the Mumbai Academy of the Moving Image (MAMI).[13][14] She remained in this role until June 2024, when she stepped down and was replaced by interim festival director Shivendra Singh Dungarpur.[1]

Film Companion

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In July 2014, Chopra founded the website Film Companion as a pan-India platform for entertainment journalism. The platform carried reviews, interviews, features and masterclasses on cinema, television and web series content. Chopra, Rahul Desai, Sucharita Tyagi and Pratayush Parasuraman wrote for the platform.[15][16] Baradwaj Rangan also wrote for many years before leaving on 15 March 2022.[17] In July 2024, Chopra announced that she was moving on and that the Film Companion, site was closing down.[18][19]

Awards

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Personal life

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Chopra is married to Vidhu Vinod Chopra, a producer and director of Hindi films.[6][20] Her daughter Zuni Chopra (born 2001/2002) is the author of three books, including a novel and two books in poetry.[21] Her son Agni Dev Chopra is a cricketer.[22]

Bibliography

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  • Sholay: The Making of a Classic. Penguin Books, 2000. ISBN 014029970X.
  • Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, British Film Institute, 2002. ISBN 0851709575.
  • King of Bollywood: Shah Rukh Khan and the Seductive World of Indian Cinema. Grand Central Publishing, 2007. ISBN 0446508985.
  • First Day First Show: Writings from the Bollywood Trenches. Penguin Books India, 2011. ISBN 0143065947.
  • Freeze Frames. Om Books, 2013. ISBN 9381607117.
  • 100 Films to See before You Die. BCCL, New Delhi, 2013. ISBN 9382299351.
  • The Front Row: Conversation on Cinema. HarperCollins Publishers India, 2015. ISBN 9789351770015.
  • In Conversation with the Stars. Rupa Publications, 2019. ISBN 9789353335182

References

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  1. ^ a b "x.com". X (formerly Twitter). Retrieved 16 June 2024.
  2. ^ Chopra, Anupama (25 July 2024). "Picture Abhi Baaki Hai..." www.filmcompanion.in. Retrieved 25 September 2024.
  3. ^ Anupama Chopra, Consulting Editor, Films, NDTV Archived 3 May 2010 at the Wayback Machine NDTV website.
  4. ^ Chopra, Anupama (2 March 2012). "Anupama Chopra's review: Paan Singh Tomar". Hindustan Times. Archived from the original on 3 March 2012. Retrieved 6 March 2012. Starting today, Anupama Chopra becomes Hindustan Times' film critic.
  5. ^ a b Results for 'au:Anupama Chopra' books Archived 28 September 2018 at the Wayback Machine WorldCat.org.
  6. ^ a b c d Ramnath, Nandini. "Home truths Anupama Chopra". Time Out Mumbai. Retrieved 6 March 2012.[dead link‍]
  7. ^ a b "48th National Film Awards" (PDF). Directorate of Film Festivals. Archived (PDF) from the original on 7 November 2017. Retrieved 8 June 2013.
  8. ^ a b Rajyasree Sen (30 April 2012). "The Front Row with Anupama Chopra is the reel thing". Firstpost. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 27 July 2014.
  9. ^ "The Front Row with Anupama Chopra". STAR World. Archived from the original on 14 March 2014. Retrieved 27 July 2014.
  10. ^ "The Front Row with Anupama Chopra". STAR Tv India. Archived from the original on 27 July 2014. Retrieved 27 July 2014.
  11. ^ "A look at what's on celebs' minds". The Tribune. 26 January 2014. Archived from the original on 8 August 2014. Retrieved 27 July 2014.
  12. ^ ""I am not a film snob" – Anupama Chopra". Cine Blitz. August 2013. Archived from the original on 10 August 2014. Retrieved 27 July 2014.
  13. ^ "MAMI has a new chairperson". The Times of India. Archived from the original on 6 December 2017. Retrieved 19 December 2016.
  14. ^ "Anupama Chopra on Balancing Life as a Critic and Festival Director". The Quint. Archived from the original on 20 December 2016. Retrieved 19 December 2016.
  15. ^ "Film Companion brings together experts and enters the education industry". Indian Television Dot Com. 18 June 2020. Archived from the original on 13 November 2020. Retrieved 23 November 2020.
  16. ^ Maneck, Ankita (5 October 2016). "Jio Mami Mumbai Film Festival: Anupama Chopra on what to expect from its 18th edition". Firstpost. Archived from the original on 28 August 2020. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
  17. ^ Baradwaj Rangan [@baradwajrangan] (15 March 2022). "Goodbye, @fcompanionsouth !" (Tweet). Retrieved 18 March 2022 – via Twitter.
  18. ^ "Film Companion Closes Down, Anupama Chopra Confirms: 'Wishing This Wonderful Crew...'". News18. 21 July 2024. Retrieved 21 July 2024.
  19. ^ "Film Companion ends its 10-year-old journey". afaqs!. 25 July 2024. Retrieved 28 July 2024.
  20. ^ "Sleeping with the Enemy". OPEN. 8 May 2010. Archived from the original on 18 October 2017. Retrieved 27 July 2014.
  21. ^ Krithika, R. (6 February 2017). "Fifteen-year-old Zuni Chopra talks about her debut novel, The House That Talks". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Archived from the original on 20 January 2024. Retrieved 20 January 2024.
  22. ^ "Agni Chopra, Son Of '12th Fail' Director, Slams 258 Runs On Ranji Trophy Debut". English Jagran. 10 January 2024. Archived from the original on 20 January 2024. Retrieved 20 January 2024.
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