Biography

Prabhat Mukherjee (1917-1997) was an Indian film director, actor and writer. He is known for his work in Bengali, Assamese, Odia, and Hindi language films. Mukherjee's career began with All India Radio. He started acting in Bengali films in 1950. The first film directed by him was Maa (1956) in Bengali language. In 1959 he worked with the legendary iconic actor Uttam Kumar in a cult film called Bicharak which won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Bengali. Mukherjee directed three more films till 1960. The Assamese film Puberun, directed by Mukerjee was released in 1959. The film was screened at the 1960 Berlin Film Festival. He also wrote the script for the film. From 1972 to 1984, Mukherjee made at least five Odia films. One of these is Ratnakar (1982), which was the first film by Odia actor and director Prashant Nanda. His other Odia films include "Nuabou"(1962), "Jeevan Sathi"(1963), "Sadhana"(1964). In 1972 Mukherjee directed his first Hindi-language film Shayar-e-Kashmir Mahjoor, which was a biopic on Ghulam Ahmad (1885-1952), the famous national poet of Kashmir and produced by the Government of Jammu and Kashmir. Balraj Sahni played the title role. After that Mukherjee directed two more Hindi films before coming back to Bengali films. He introduced Mallika Sarabhai into films.