Director dons a new cap

"The drama, the sweat and the tears of producing documentary films in different genres” was demonstrated and conveyed by Cyrus Bharucha at a workshop conducted under the aegis of the British Council Division in Bombay on August 8 and 9, 2013. A multi award winning TV and film producer and director Bharucha who has worked in the USA and BBC London for the over 30 years covered the concept of a broadcast documentary for current affairs, entertainment and biographies, how to choose a subject, the financing and distribution of documentaries and a short history on the documentary film. "We had a full house” with 25 registering for the seats available, mentioned Bharucha who was disappointed that there was not a single Parsi in attendance although there were six Bohris, four men and two ladies clad in their hijabs asking "the most intelligent questions” concerning filmmaking which they undertake for their community.

Cyrus Bharucha (above) with Behram and Rena Baxter

In fact, Bharucha barely sees any Parsis in his many classes and declares it is "really sad considering we were amongst the pioneers in the industry.” During his many decades of teaching he recalls one Parsi boy at Whistling Woods who "didn’t know if he was coming or going. I had to counsel him a lot.” Currently professor of communications at the Asian Institute of Communication and Research business school and consultant to Time-Life, WQET and major Indian corporations, whilst moving across three continents in the course of a year Bharucha teaches channel management, broadcast journalism, history of TV/cinema, arts and western culture. The senior citizen has lectured at several universities, museums and concert halls including the American University, Ohio State, Minneapolis San Diego Symphony, the Smithsonian Museum and San Diego Museum of Art. As trainer at the BBC school for film directing he has mentored many people working in British TV today. Recently he has worked on several commercials in India for clients like GE, and a high budget biographical corporate film on Anil Agarwal and Vedanta.
As general manager of classical music radio station XLNC1 in San Diego, as vice president of Global Movies Direct, the largest website for Indian movies and distributorship of Indian and English films worldwide, as executive producer/director for DSI, as CEO of TV Asia, as executive producer/director for two major PBS stations, KTCA, Minneapolis/St Paul and WLIW, New York over the years Bharucha has left his mark on many organizations, as shown in his bio data.
His Emmy nominated variety show From China to US won the Best Television program at the Chicago International Fest, his musical documentary on civil rights A Day to Remember won the Best TV program and his documentary ABT won the best documentary at the Chicago Film/TV Festival. He also has to his credit the documentary Fireworks with co-director George Plimpton that was nominated for Emmy/ACE award. The syndicated drama Nobody Listens was nominated by the New York Film Festival for the Best Children Drama.
On national issues he produced the 13-part documentary Crisis to Crisis with Barbara Jordan that covered major conflicts in the USA and was rated by Time magazine as one of the 10 best TV programs for 1982. He was one of the producers to have televised the first broadcast on CNN. For Discovery Channel his series Profiles in Progress was shot around the world with Newsweek contributing editor Pranay Gupte.
His career in TV started at the BBC where he joined the Film department as a cameraman, then joined the Current Affairs department as a producer for Mid-Week, a nightly live TV show which allowed him to travel to West Africa to cover the famine, Egypt and Kuwait during the Yom Kippur war, floods in Pakistan, and was the first producer to bring Albert Speer, Nazi minister and Hitler’s architect to the UK after his release from Spandau. Bharucha was also one of the producers who covered the daily Watergate hearings.
Within the Parsi community, he is best known for his feature film On Wings of Fire with Zubin Mehta, Nigel Terry and a host of English and Indian stars depicting the history of Prophet Zarathushtra and the Parsi community. This historical costume drama with a speaking cast of over 60 actors was shot in several studios and locations. Currently he is in the process of digitalizing the sound of On Wings of Fire "to regain the good original sound for the DVD” that he is hoping to redistribute. Asked if he plans to undertake any other assignment concerning the community, he candidly replies, "No, thank you. One also drove me to death.” Though he may not wish to comment on the community, regarding Zoroastrianism he states, "Our religion…always has been and will be one of the greatest.”
Educated at Kent College Canterbury and Regent St Polytechnic (Westminster University), Bharucha earned a professional IBP diploma in photography (now a BSc degree). He has just finished writing a novel Bollywood, Beds and Beyond — Life in Bollywood, a thriller that will cover the erotic life of its people. It will be published by Createspace, a branch of Amazon and Simon and Schuster. As sums up the director-writer, "I love making films and now writing them… I find writing hard as it is a skill I have had to develop much more than film directing and producing. Also writing is very lonely and I like interacting with people. Filmmaking is very inclusive and a team effort.”