Manjeet Singh

Manjeet Singh is an Indian screenwriter, producer and director. He is a mechanical engineer by qualification and a self taught artist, who paints, photographs, makes films, etc. Sacrificing his engineering career in the USA, he switched to film-making. Variety considers him, ‘ New voice of Indian Cinema’. Manjeet is a contemporary Neo-Realist film maker, with a gift to extract great performances from non-actors and use natural light/real locations to create rich imagery. ‘Mumbai Cha Raja’ aka ‘Mumbai’s King’ his debut feature film, set in Mumbai slums, is inevitably compared to ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ despite being made at a fraction of later’s cost. The film premiered at Toronto International Film festival in 2012, where he was also selected for Toronto’s Talent Lab. The film was in competition at the Abu Dhabi, Palm Springs and Mumbai Film Festivals, where(Mumbai) it won a special Jury prize. The film earlier won the ‘Prasad award’ in ‘Work in Progress’ section of ‘Film Bazaar’ , Goa in 2011. Mumbai Cha Raja was selected for the ‘Producer’s Lab’ Cinemart, International Film Festival Rotterdam. The film travelled to Shanghai, Fribourg, Santa Barbara, Cinequest, Cleveland, Chicago, New York’s Asian American, Stockholm Junior, Bradford, Tromso, Indian film festival Hague, Jaipur, Bengaluru and many other festivals.His 2nd feature film script, ‘Chenu’, a story based on the revenge saga of a low caste dalit boy against landlord militia in the back drop of their caste war with the violent leftist ‘Naxals’ was in Official Selection at Cannes Film Festival’s prestigious Ciné Fondation Atelier co-production section. It was also part of ‘Produire au Sud’, a co-production workshop at ‘Three Continents Film Festival’, in Nantes.