Dakxin Chhara
Dakxinkumar Bajrange (Chhara) is an award winning filmmaker, playwright and an activist from the Chhara De-notified Tribes of Ahmedabad in the western part of India. He is a recipient of Ford Foundation International Fellowship (2010-11) to study Graduate studies in ‘Theatre and Global Development’ at the University of Leeds, UK. His book ‘Budhan Bolta Hai’ (Budhan Speaks) awarded first prize for “Mahatma Gandhi Best Creative Writing on Human Rights” by National Human rights Commission (NHRC) for 2010-11. He is also a recipient of Rajiv Gandhi Arts Fellowship (2004-05) and Bhasha Fellowship (2002-03) to study art forms of nomadic and de-notified communities in Gujarat. Currently, he works as an “Artistic Director” at BudhanTheatre (www.budhantheatre.org), he is also a founding director of Nomad Movies Pvt Ltd. He has written and Directed 13 plays and Supervised 48 Theatre Productions of Budhan Theatre and performed more than 1000 shows in different parts of India. He was nominated for “Heroes of Ahmedabad” by Ahmedabad Mirror. As a Filmmaker, he directed 96 fiction and non-fiction films/TV series on various developmental, social and political issues of India He has recently directed his debuted critically acclaimed Bollywood film “Sameer”, starring Zeeshan Mohammed, Seema Biswas, Anjali Patil. Sameer was released in theatres in India on 8th Sept 2017 and also screened in New York Indian Film Festival (USA), Charlotte Asian Film Festival (USA) and Indian International Film Festival of Queensland, Australia where he received “Best Director” award for ‘Sameer”. His academic and journalistic articles on Theatre and Films appeared in number of national and international journals/newspapers.