Adoor Gopalakrishnan is India’s most distinguished contemporary filmmaker. Born in 1941, in the southern state of Kerala, he studied filmmaking at the Pune-based Film and Television Institute of India, and soon established himself as one of the leaders of the Indian New Wave of the 1970s and ’80s. He has made 11 award-winning feature films and nearly 30 short films.

Complete retrospectives of Gopalakrishnan’s work have been held at New York’s Lincoln Center, the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., the Paris Cinematheque, and the Munich Film Museum. His many national and international awards include the National Award (the most prominent film award in India), which he has won nine times; the Dada Saheb Phalke Award (for lifetime achievement); the British Film Institute’s Sutherland Trophy; the International Film Critics Award (FIPRESCI), which he has received six times; and the UNICEF prize at the Venice Film Festival. The government of India has conferred on him its second highest civilian award, the Padma Vibhushan. France has honored him with the Légion d’honneur and the Commandeur de Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.