Umesh Kulkarni was born on 6 December 1976 in Pune to Vinayak and Vishakha Kulkarni. He graduated in commerce from BMCC, Pune besides acquiring a law degree. He joined FTII Pune in February 2000. Kulkarni also directed short films such as
Girni, Three of Us, Vilay and
Gaarud.
Girni won the National Film Award for the Best Non Feature Film. His first feature film
Valu was a significant film for Marathi cinema. It is amongst the few Marathi films that kept the box office collection on an upward swing and also traveled to more than 30 International film festivals, including the
Berlin film festival. He then went on to work on features like
Vihir and
Deool. Vihir was featured in
Berlin film festival and
Rotterdam International Film Festival 2010, the Netherlands.
Deool won the 59th
National Film Awards for
Best Feature Film,
Best Actor (
Girish Kulkarni) and
Best Dialogue (Girish Kulkarni). == Filmography ==