Sudhendu Roy

(1921 - 1999)

Sudhendu Roy (1921–1999) was a noted Indian film director, art director and production designer in Hindi cinema, most known for his realistic art direction in auteur Bimal Roy's films, like Sujata (1959), Madhumati (1959) and Bandini (1963), and glitzy work in films Subhash Ghai's Karz (1980) and Karma (1986) to Yash Chopra's Silsila (1981), Chandni (1989) and Lamhe (1991). He won the Filmfare Award for Best Art Direction thrice for Madhumati (1959), Mere Mehboob (1964), and Sagina (1975). He also directed Hindi films like Uphaar (1971) and Saudagar (1973), both of which were India's official entries to the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Sudhendu Roy was born and brought up in Pabna (now in Bangladesh), where his father Puranchandra Roy was a lawyer by profession from eastern Bengal, who was also a writer and even took part in the freedom movement, and wanted his son to study law, young Roy had other plans, so he took his admission fees to join a law college in Kolkata, and ran away from home, never to go back.