Shyam Benegal (born 14 December 1934) is an Indian director and screenwriter. With his first four feature films Ankur (1973), Nishant (1975), Manthan (1976) and Bhumika (1977) he created a new genre, which has now come to be called the "middle cinema" in India. He has expressed dislike of the term, preferring his work to be called New or Alternate cinema.  He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1976 and the Padma Bhushan in 1991. On 8 August 2007, Benegal was awarded the highest award in Indian cinema for lifetime achievement, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award for the year 2005. He has won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi seven times.

Shyam Benegal, was born on 14 December 1934 in Trimulgherry, Secunderabad, then a British Cantonment, and now a twin city of the state capital, as Shyam Sunder Benegal. It was here, at age twelve, that he made his first film, on a camera given to him by his photographer father, Sridhar B. Benegal. He received an M.A. in Economics from Nizam College, Osmania University, Hyderabad. There he formed the Hyderabad Film Society.

In 1959, he started working as a copywriter at a Bombay-based advertising agency, Lintas Advertising, where he steadily rose to become a creative head. Meanwhile, Benegal made his first documentary in Gujarati, Gher Betha Ganga (Ganges at Doorstep) in 1962. His first feature film had to wait another decade while he worked on the script.

In 1963 he had a brief stint with another advertising agency called ASP (Advertising, Sales and Promotion). During his advertising years, he directed over 900 sponsored documentaries and advertising films.

Between 1966 and 1973, Shyam taught at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune, and twice served as the institute's chairman: 1980–83 and 1989–92. By this time he had already started making documentaries. One of his early documentaries, A Child of the Streets (1967), garnered him wide acclaim.[6] In all, he has made over 70 documentary and short films.

He was awarded the Homi J. Bhabha Fellowship (1970–72)[3] which allowed him to work at the Children's Television Workshop, New York, and later at Boston's WGBH-TV.