Not Luck By Chance: Zoya Akhtar’s journey to be a member of The Academy

It was neither Luck nor chance that won Zoya Akhtar the honour. In spite of being born to the famous screen writer, Javed Akhtar and his then wife Honey Irani in 1972. Her brother Farhan Akhtar too is a director-turned-actor. Her step mother Shabana Azmi is an award winning actress

After graduating from New York University, Akhtar went on to work with award-winning filmmakers like Mira Nair. Later, she produced movies and one of them is her brother’s directorial venture Dil Chahta Hain.

Zoya too made her directorial debut with Luck By Chance which starred her brother Farhan as an actor. The film met with success at the box office as well as with the critics.

Akhtar then went on to make movies like Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, Bombay Talkies, Dil Dhadakne Do and the very recent Gully Boy, which could arguably be one of the biggest movies of 2019 so far.

She is also one of the early adopters of the new-age cinema with short films and web series. She directed one of the films in Netflix’s Lust Stories, also directed Amazon Prime’s popular series, Made in Heaven.