B. Lenin

Lenin was born in a Bondil Rajput family consisting of eight children. His father A. Bhimsingh was a well known director in Tamil and Hindi films.^[2] Lenin started his career as an associate director of his father and assisted in editing many of his films.^[3] He also had experience as a lab technician and sound engineering department as well.^[3]

After several films working as an assistant, Lenin first worked independently on Kalank, a Fiji-based production, in 1978.^[4] He made his debut as an independent editor in Indian cinema with the 1979 Tamil film Uthiripookkal which was directed by Mahendran. Although he started as an independent editor, he later associated himself with his assistant V. T. Vijayan, and the duo went on to work together in a number of films during the 80s and 90s, including Nayakan, Geethanjali, Anjali and Kaadhalan, which won them the National Film Award for Best Editing.^[5]

He made his directorial debut in 1983 with Ethanai Konam Ethanai Parvai (1983), and went on to direct four feature films and four non-feature films. His short film Knock-Out (1992) was critically acclaimed and went on to win the Islamia Critics Award for Best Short Film at the Cairo International Film Festival.^[6] It also won the National Film Award for Best First Non-Feature Film of a Director for Lenin.^[7] Three years later, he directed his second short film tilted Kutravali, which won the Best Editing at the 43rd National Film Awards.^[6] In 2002, Lenin made Ooruku Nooruper. The film won him the Best Direction award and the Best Regional Film (Tamil).^[3] The film dealt with capital punishment and was received with critical response.^[3][8] He has also directed a few TV serials including Solladi Sivasakthi.^[7] Lenin has held important positions such as the jury member of 57th National Film Awards (2010) and the chairman of Oscar selection committee (of FFI) in 2011.^[6][9] Now he is contributing heavily to the education society thorough various institutions like Pune Film Institute, Lenin now works along with a reputed film institute in Coimbatore named Clusters media college as its dean helping its students gain knowledge in real time professional movie making and guiding them through his wide experience in film industry^[10][11]