A Management graduate from the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (JBIMS) and a fully qualified Cost Accountant (ICWAI), Atul Taishete quit a career in Investment Banking to pursue filmmaking. Subsequently, he graduated from the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune and then went on to study Film Direction (Université d’été) at the French film school ‘La Fémis’ in Paris.

He has writing credits on films like ‘Johnny Gaddar’ (Additional Dialogues) and Risk (Screenplay). His debut directorial short film ‘Rewind’, a film in reverse, opened at the Locarno International Film festival and won Grand Jury at the Oscar-qualifying Seattle Film Festival. His science fiction mini-feature ‘The Saviour’ was produced by MTV and had a theatrical release in India. His directorial debut feature in Hindi titled ‘Vartak Nagar – A story of four boys’, jointly produced by Amit Agarwal and Kunal Kohli, has played in competition at the Cinequest and Kolkata International Film festivals. Vartak Nagar is due for a theatrical release this year.

In other interests, his enthusiasm for graphic novels led him to create the comic strip, ‘Office Blahs’ with the talented illustrator Deesha Patel. His debut book ‘Anybody can write a film (Demystifying the screenwriting process)’ released in February 2022 tries to look beyond film writing jargon and hopes to simplify the writing process for anybody and everybody interested in writing screenplays. The book is available for sale on Amazon worldwide.

He currently writes and directs narrative fiction features, web series, documentaries and advertising films in Bombay, India. He is the creator and host of the popular podcast ‘Conversations with Atul’.