Shabana Azmi is an internationally acclaimed actress, Member of the Indian Parliament, and UN Goodwill Ambassador. She is the winner of an unprecedented five National Awards for Best Actress in India for the films Ankur (1974), Arth (1983), Khandhar (1984), Paar (1985), and Godmother (1999) and international awards for best actress at the Taormina Arte Festival in Italy for Patang (1994), the Chicago International Film Festival and the Los Angeles Outfest for Deepa Mehta’s Fire (1996). Several retrospectives of her films have been screened at the George Pompidou Center in Paris, the Norwegian Film Institute, the Smithsonian Institute and the American Film Institute in Washington as well as at the Pacific Cinemetheque and Winnipeg Cinematheque.
She has been chairperson of the jury at the Montreal International Film Festival and the Cairo International Film Festival. She won international acclaim in John Schlesinger’s Madame Sousatzka, co-starring Shirley Maclaine, Nicholas Klotz’s The Bengali Night co-starring John Hurt and Hugh Grant; and Roland Joffe’s City of Joy, co-starring Patrick Swayze. Other films include Channel 4’s Immaculate Conception, opposite James Wilby in The Son of Pink Panther by Blake Edward and Isma il Merchant’s In Custody.
Shabana Azmi, wife of poet, lyricist, and
screenwriter Javed Akhter and daughter of
renowned Urdu poet, Kaifi Azmi, and seasoned
stage actress, Shaukat Kaifi, is a graduate in
Psychology from St. Xavier College in Mumbai,
India. She secured her diploma in acting from
the Film and Television Institute in Pune,
India. Also as chairperson of the Nivara Hakk
Suraksha Samiti she arranged for alternate land
for the disputed slum dwellers of Sanjay Gandhi
Nagar in Mumbai and undertook to diffuse
tensions after the demolition of the Babri
Masjid. For her excellence in social activism,
Shabana Azmi won the Rajiv Gandhi Award as well
the Yash Bhartiya award from the government of
the state of Uttar Pradesh, India. Most
significantly she was awarded the Padma Shri in
1988 by the Government of India. This is an
award given to eminent citizens for excellence
in their field and distinguished contribution to
society. The President of India has also
nominated Shabana Azmi as Member of Parliament
of upper house or Rajya Sabha. Azmi has recently
been appointed as United Nations Goodwill
Ambassador on Population and Development.
In more recent developments, the New York Film
Institute hosted a week of selected films of Ms.
Azmi in 2002 and in that same year, in October,
she made a speech at the Asia Society titled
"Coexistence and Conflict: Hindu Muslim
Relations in India."
