Vikas Bahl

Bahl was born and brought up in Lajpat Nagar in Delhi, and his father worked with the Indian Oil Corporation. After his schooling from Sardar Patel Vidyalaya and graduation from Ramjas College, Delhi, he moved to Mumbai to pursue an MBA degree from SVKM's NMIMS.[1]

Bahl started his career with advertising, working for several years in client servicing, before joining UTV Spotboy. In 2011, he started Phantom Films, along with Anurag Kashyap, Vikramaditya Motwane and Madhu Mantena. Over the years as a director he has worked with film directors such as Vishal Bhardwaj, Anurag Kashyap, Rajkumar Gupta and Vikramaditya Motwane.[7]

In 2011, he co-directed Chillar Party and won the National Film Award for Best Screenplay, along with Nitesh Tiwari and Vijay Maurya. The film also garnered the National Film Award for Best Children's Film.[8] In 2014 came his independent directorial venture Queen, starring Kangana Ranaut, which received critical and popular acclaim.[1][9]

His 2015 movie Shaandar, a destination wedding film, was a flop and received neutral to negative responses.[9][10] In October 2014, he directed a short film Going Home, featuring Alia Bhatt, on women's safety, which went viral on social media.[11][12][13] Bahl next directed a biopic on mathematician and IIT-JEE coach Anand Kumar called Super 30,[14] which featured Hrithik Roshan as Kumar.[15].[16]

In October 2018, in an interview with Huffington Post India, a former employee of Phantom Films accused Bahl of sexually harassing her on the sets of movie Queen.[17] Later, the film's lead actress Kangana Ranaut spoke out in support of the former Phantom employee, and corroborated her version of Bahl's sexual harassment.[18][19] Following this, Nayani Dixit, Ranaut's co-star in the movie, also accused him of sexual misconduct.[20] Phantom Films subsequently disbanded, and founders Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane made formal statements against Bahl and his sexual misdemeanors. In turn, Bahl sent them legal notices, citing defamation of character.[21]

• Vikas Bahl on IMDb
• Vikas Bahl at Bollywood Hungama