Zafar Hai

Zafar Hai is an Indian filmmaker and writer. He is the uncle of Hollywood actor, producer and director Tabreez Noorani. Hai has been in the industry for more than three decades. He won the National Film Award for Best Promotional Film in the year 1972, for his film “Destination India”. His next call to fame was as the director of the celebrated film “The Perfect Murder” in 1988, which was based on the 1964 novel of the same name by British crime fiction writer HRF Keating and starred Naseeruddin Shah Naseeruddin Shah is an experimental actor and asso >> Read More... . He won the National Film Award yet again in 1993 for the film “Timeless India”. In 2004, while making a movie on Jamshedji and JRD Tata, Hai decided to heed to the call of his roots as his camera prepared to leave the world of corporate Mumbai and roll back into a time when India was under the last vestige of Mughal culture.

Ever since his movie on the 100-year old Taj Mahal Hotel, which led to the Taj of Apollo Bunder being chosen to participate in the Bangkok Film Festival, Hai has not had to worry about amassing funds for his movies. Hai’s second film, “Merchant Princess of Bombay”, has earned him accolades as well. Besides these, Hai has also won the Filmfare Award for Best Documentary, that too twice; the first one was in 1978 for “Transformations”, and the second one was for “Experience India” in 1983. On 28th September 2012, Hai and Noorani acquired the film rights for “Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan” by London-based Indian journalist-turned-author/historian Shrabani Basu, for an undisclosed amount.