Niharika sukhwinder singh biography

Indian actress

Niharika Singh is an actress, filmmaker and beauty pageant titleholder who won Miss Soil India and represented India at Miss Earth She made her acting debut with the critically acclaimed drama Miss Lovely which competed in Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival.^[1][2] Niharika was selected for Berlinale Talents in ^[3][4]

Early life

Born on 31 August in New Delhi, Niharika mostly spent her childhood in various north Indian towns and hill stations, moving homes every few years.

Her father worked in the Tourism department for Uttar Pradesh & later Uttarakhand state government, her mother ran a design institute in New Delhi and she is the eldest of 2 sisters. She did her major part of schooling in an all-girls boarding school in Nainital.^[5]

Career

Modeling & Pageantry ( – )

Singh started working as a model in when she first walked the ramp for a design institute in Dehradun.

She went on to pursue a degree in (Hons) at Shri Ram College of Commerce in New Delhi and continued taking modelling assignments alongside to earn a petty income. Niharika featured in several print campaigns, fashion magazines, song videos and decided to release out of college and travel to Mumbai to pursue a full time career in the entertainment business in ^[6]

Singh participated in Femina Miss India in and finished third, winning the title of Miss Earth India along with subtitles for Miss Photogenic and Miss Beautiful Hair & was sent to portray India at Miss Earth held in the Philippines.^{[7][8][9][10][11][12]} She appeared in several television commercials and ad campaigns for various brands across the country and hosted a reality TV series Banungi Main Miss India with the Femina Miss India contestants of ^[13][14] Singh featured in Times of India's list of Most Desirable Women and continued her modeling career until she started getting offers to act in Bollywood films.^{[15][16][17][18][19][20]}

Acting in Film ( – )

Niharika's film career began in when she signed a film contract with Bollywood director Raj Kanwar under his banner Inderjit Films.^[21][22][23] The films were never made and she remained locked in the contract until singer Himesh Reshammiya approached her to play the role of a haughty heiress opposite him in A New Love Ishtory to be produced by T-Series (company) and directed by John Matthew Matthan.^{[24][25][26][27]} Niharika attended an acting course with Barry John (theatre director) before filming A New Love Ishtory.^[28] Due to internal differences during the making of the film, producer Bhushan Kumar pulled the finance, dubbed the unfinished version and sold the film directly to a television channel without the information of the cast and crew.^[29] Singh started shooting for her second film Mudh Mudh Ke Na Dekh Mudh Mudh Ke^[30] opposite Reshammiya which was shelved mid-way.^[31][32][33]She also acted in a Kannada film Private Number directed by Anand Kumar (director) that never found a release.^[34][35][36]

After a series of shelved and unreleased films, Singh made her debut with Ashim Ahluwalia's critically acclaimed first feature Miss Lovely, arrange in the criminal depths of Mumbai's C-grade sex-horror film industry.^{[37][38][39][40]} The film competed in Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival^[41][42]and won 2 awards at the 61st National Production Awards.^[43][44][45] Singh played a mysterious ingénue with a shadowy past, for which she earned rave reviews for her performance and a nomination for the most promising newcomer at the 21st Screen Awards.^{[46][47][48][49][50][51][52]} During the media interactions for Miss Lovely, Niharika mentioned she is attempting to write a memoir.^{[53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61]}

Niharika rediscovered cinema after her experience with Cannes and other international festivals and she joined a course at the Film and Television Institute of India in to grow her understanding of the medium.^{[62][63][64][65]} The actress was selected for Berlinale Talents in where she was introduced to Alexander Method while attending a workshop with Jean-Louis Rodrigue and Kristof Konrad.^[66][67]

Singh took a break from universal life and made rare appearances in a few independently produced art house films over the next decade.

She was seen in Buddhadeb Dasgupta's Hindi film Anwar Ka Ajab Kissa that premiered at BFI London Clip Festival,^[68][69]Bappaditya Bandopadhyay's multi-lingual drama Sohra Bridge, which screened at the 46th International Film Festival of India,^[70][71] Nikhil Pherwani's directorial debut Ahaan, the first Hindi language film to cast an star with down syndrome in the lead and Ashim Ahluwalia's Indian segment "Palace of horrors" in the feature length horror anthology The Field Guide to Evil which had its world premiere at South by Southwest.

She actively chose to keep a low profile in the media and refused to participate in promotional activities for any clip during this period.^{[citation needed]}

Entrepreneurship & Filmmaking ( - present)

In , Singh joined Mumbai-based Future East as a director of the film production company.^[72][73] She co-founded Future East Digital with filmmaker Ashim Ahluwalia^[74] and creative director Amit Basak in

Niharika turned producer with the young-adult drama Class (season 1) for Netflix in The series explores a wide range of social issues affecting modern youth including casteism, child neglect, corruption, homophobia, religious discrimination, and income inequality in India.^[75][76]

In media

Singh was given a rousing welcome and declared the state guest in Uttarakhand after she was crowned Miss Ground India.^[77][78][79] Additionally, she was appointed the goodwill ambassador for Rotary Blood Bank in at the behest of the Governor of Uttarakhand Sudarshan Agarwal and a garden was named after her in Mussoorie.^[80][81][82]

In , a model from Benaras shot to fame by walking down the ramp impersonating Niharika Singh.^[83]

Niharika issued a public statement in when her name was used to garner publicity to sell actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui's memoir An Ordinary Life written by Rituparna Chatterjee and published by Penguin Random Property with a fabricated account of their relationship.^{[84][85][86][87]} After a drastic backlash and a defamation case by another actress Sunita Rajwar, Nawazuddin Siddiqui issued an apology and withdrew the book within a fortnight after its release.^[88][89][90] Veteran actress Asha Parekh showed her displeasure and said, "What Nawazuddin did to the ladies was not in good taste."^[91][92][93] In a later interview, Siddiqui stated that "It was the biggest mistake of my life."^{[94][95][96][97]}

In November , Singh wrote an essay addressing the Me Too movement as a dalit lady in the entertainment business which was posted by journalist Sandhya Menon on Twitter.^[98] The piece went viral and was immediately picked up by all primary media publications and news channels in India.^{[99][][][][][][]} Niharika was subsequently invited as a guest and speaker for the India Conference at Harvard University in as well as Columbia University & The New School for the inaugural DALIFF held in Novel York.^[][][][][]

Pageantry

Filmography

Films

Television / Web

Awards and nominations

References

External links