Piyush Jha Biography

Piyush Jha is an Indian film director and screenwriter, most known for his acclaimed films Sikandar (2009), King of Bollywood and Chalo America.

Early Life

Piyush Jha was born in 1971 in Jhansi, U.P; his father Vyas Hiralal Jha retired as a Major in the army. At a very early age of 8, he came to Mumbai, Maharashtra with his parents. He grew up and studied there, graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology at the University of Mumbai and following it up with an MBA.

Career

Advertising

Jha began his career in 1993 in advertising as an Account Executive at Grey Worldwide, where he dealt with clients such as Ambuja Cement and Snowcem Paints. He later went on to work in Mudra Communications in strategic account management with clients such as Procter and Gamble, Godrej Soaps, etc.

At this point, he started getting interested in the creative aspect of advertising and began with directing in-house ad films for companies such as Godrej Hair Dye, Federal Bank Ltd., Kitply, etc, and soon moved to directing corporate films as well.

In 1997, he took this interest further on to start his own ad film production company Vitamin J Productions, where he made ads for Indian Oil, Hindustan Lever, Symphony Air Coolers and UB Group among many others.

Feature Films

In 1999, he decided to take a plunge into the world of feature film making, and the Government of India's NFDC produced his first feature, ‘Chalo America’, a hilarious yet touching story of a group of three Indian college boys obsessed with the American dream, and how they concoct various schemes to find a way into the US.

Although a laugh riot, the film addressed a serious issue sensitively, which is the obsessive aspirational desire for emigration. It was selected at the prestigious Indian Panorama Section at the International Film Festival of India, 1999, and travelled wide to many international film festivals such as those in Shanghai, Cairo, San Diego, Dhaka, Atlanta, amongst others.

After continuing to make Ad films, Piyush Jha returned to the big screen in 2004, with the first Indian film in the "Mockumentary" genre, ‘King of Bollywood’, starring Om Puri and British supermodel Sophie Dahl. It tells the story of an ageing Bollywood Superstar, and the hilarity, colour and zany-ness of his many comeback attempts.

Sikandar, the film was a story about a young boy, who only wanted to play soccer, but one day finds a gun on his way to school, and how that affects his life, and the life of the little village he lives in.

Sikandar was selected in the International Film Festivals.

Personal Style

Piyush Jha's films are noted for the unconventionality of the subject matter and treatment. For instance, Chalo America is about young college boys and emigration, but it does not stray into having a typical Bollywood type love track. Similarly, Sikandar has young teenagers as the leads, while King of Bollywood has a British Documentary filmmaker through whose eyes the story unfolds.

Technically too, Piyush has shown a flair for breaking new ground in the range of his works, from the innovative filming style that brings a unique flavour in King of Bollywood, to the classical approach he favoured for showcasing the grandeur and beauty of Kashmir, to the fresh energetic approach of Chalo America and his ad-films. Piyush has always pushed the bounds of what is possible on celluloid.