Jyoti Prakash Dutta, commonly known as JP Dutta is an Indian film producer, writer and director and he works for Hindi Bollywood films. Known for his direction in patriotic war films as well as action genre, J P Dutta’s movies often has ensemble star casts. JP Dutta’s produces his movie under the banner of JP Films. He has also been a recipient of the National Award for Best Feature Film on National Integration and he received the award from the President of India for his most successful movie Border. Some of the movies written, directed and produced by him include Border, Refugee, LOC Kargil and Umrao Jaan.
Born on 3rd October 1949 in Bombay (Now Mumbai), Maharashtra, JP Dutta had his family connections in Bollywood. He was the son of O.P. Dutta who was a director and screenwriter in Bollywood films and has been the director of movies like Pyaar Ki Jeet, Hamari Manzil, Ek Nazar. He wrote dialogues for most of his son’s movies and he has been credited for his writings in movies like Ghulami, Border, Umrao Jaan. He won the Lifetime Achievement Award from Filmfare in 2006. J. P. Dutta was interested in making a career in Bollywood since childhood. He has been brought up by a successful director himself. J.P. would always get instructions from his father and his father was his mentor in his professional life as well. J.P. made his first Bollywood movie in 1976 titled Sarhad. The movie had superstars like Vinod Khanna, Bindiya Goswamu and Mithun Chakraborty in lead roles. However, despite such a huge starcast, the movie was unreleased and J.P. had to wait for more than eight years for his directorial debut. He then made his debut in 1985 with the movie titled Ghulami. The movie had a starcast comprising Dharmendra, Mithun Chakraborty, Mazhar Khan, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Smita Patil, Naseeruddin Shah in the lead roles. The movie was shot in Fatehpur, Rajasthan and narrated by Amitabh Bachchan. The movie was a moderate success in the box office. The next release was in the year 1988 with the movie titled Yateem. The movie starred actors like Sunny Deol, Farha Naaz, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Danny Denzongpa and Amrish Puri. He later also directed movies like Batwara (1989), Hathyar (1989) and Kshatriya (1993). All the movies were moderately successful but weren’t able to create any big impact. The best movie of J.P. Dutta’s career was the movie Border released in 1997. The movie was based on the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 and had stars like Sunny Deol, Sunil Shetty, Akshaye Khanna, Jackie Shroff in the lead. The movie was a huge hit and the movie was even screened retrospective on August 13th 2016 at the Independence Day Film Festival. The movie won the Nargis Dutt Award for Best Feature Film on National Integration. Javed Akhtar won the National Film Award for Best Lyrics and singer Hariharan won the National Award for Best Male Playback Singer. The movie also won filmfare award and JP Dutta won the Filmfare award for Best Director. In 2013, it was announced that a sequel of Border will be made. After the success of Border, the next movie by JP Dutta was Refugee released in 2000. The movie marked the debuts of Abhishek Bachchan and Kareena Kapoor. The other star in the movie includes Jackie Shroff, Sunil Shetty and Anupam Kher. The movie was the fifth highest grossing movie of the year. In the year 2003, JP Dutta made another movie on War titled LOC Kargil. The movie was based on the 1999 Operation Vijay around the Line of Control. The movies received mixed response in the box office. The last movie directed by JP was the movie Umrao Jaan in 2006. The movie starred Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan. The movies did not do well in the box office and also received negative comments.
J.P. Dutta is married to Bollywood actress Bindiya Goswami. She was also a part of JP Dutta’s unreleased movie Sarhad. The couple has two daughters Nidhi and Siddhi and it has been reported that Nidhi may make her Bollywood debut in the sequel of Border.