Mahesh Bhatt (born on 20 September 1948), is a prominent Indian film director, producer and screenwriter. Bhatt's early directional career consisted of acclaimed films, such as Arth, Saaransh, Janam, Naam and Zakhm. He was later the writer of numerous commercial films in a range of film genres, from dramas like Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke and comedies like Duplicate, though he was mostly recognised for thrillers like Inteha, Jism, Murder and Woh Lamhe.

Early life and family

Mahesh Bhatt was born to Nanabhai Bhatt, (1915–1999), a Hindi film director-producer. His father was a Gujarati Hindu and mother a Shia Muslim. Nanabhai's brother, Balwant Bhatt (1909–1965) was also a Hindi film director. In 1970 Bhatt dropped out of college to enter films.

Cinematic style

Bhatt's films show an unusual engagement with the psychological damage arising from infringement of social norms, situations which are characteristic deep mental/emotion damage and trauma. These films provided challenges of characterization to their actors, who included both parallel and mainstream stars. Bhatt himself is known for making both art films with realistic topics and commercial films which include a wide division of action, comedy and thriller films.

His serious films demanded strong performances from the performers, and actors who worked under Bhatt's hand have won awards for their performances in his films, like National Film Awards and Filmfare Awards. Whatever the concept may be his movies always contain a relationship of friendship. That can be marked in his Zeher, Woh Lamhein, Paap, Jism etc.