Happy Birthday Zoya Akhtar: 5 films other than ZNMD that made her a prolific director

Zoya Akhtar, the creative genius director, celebrates her 46th birthday today. The talented director has time and again showed that characters don’t deserve special treatment on the basis of their genders. Every film directed by her weave a beautiful tale of larger than life characters entwined with human emotions and love for life. Zoya writes her own films and lets us dive into her world with every movie. Here’s a list of masterpieces by the director:

Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara

You Live Only Once The film that revolved around the lives of three childhood friends remains one of Zoya Akhtar's finest works till date. Shot at some of the most exotic locations of the world including United Kingdom, Egypt, Mumbai, and in Spain's Barcelona, Pamplona, Buñol and Andalusia, the film became a superhit for reasons more than one. From the sky-diving shots to the underwater shots that focused on Hrithik and Katrina, the film has been brilliantly made. Several moments have been captured so beautifully that for many scenes, you forget if it's a film or if it's happening right in front of you.

Bombay Talkies

Zoya Akhtar impressed her viewers with four shorts celebrating 100 years of Hindi cinema. This film of the director is a more character-oriented one than ones that complete the story. But the story is not completely negligible. Deep meaning dialogue are her speciality and Slow pace momentum of screenplay definitely takes viewers along with characters on screen.

Luck By Chance

Zoya has cleverly served her films with a contemporary twist that appeals to a new generation. Even her ability to direct ensembles is perhaps a throwback to the golden era of multi-starrers, when one got to enjoy many faces for the price of one ticket. In Luck By Chance, even though the primary character of this film was Vikram (Farhan Akhtar), the story did not neglect its pivotal female characters. Sona Mishra (Konkona Sen Sharma) is shown as an independent woman who is struggling to make it big in the movie business. 

Dil Dhadakne Do

Dil Dhadakne Do’ (2015), Zoya’s third film was about a dysfunctional family portrayed on-screen with great depth into the characters and storyline. Priyanka Chopra’s character, Ayesha was shown as the daughter who never got her due. Despite her high intellect, she’s looked down by the family’s patriarch.

In spite of having all the qualities of a new-age, unconventional filmmaker, Zoya's directorial voice remains firmly rooted in good old mainstream Bollywood. Friendship, separation, loneliness, ambition... Zoya Akhtar goes on to explore human emotions in a better way than any other director.