Mani Kaul (25 December 1944 – 6 July 2011) was a Indian Kashmiri Pandit film director of Hindi films and an influential director of Indian parallel cinema. He graduated from the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) where he was a student of Ritwik Ghatak and later became a teacher. Started his career with Uski Roti (1969), which won him the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Movie, he went on to win four of them in all. He won the National Film Award for Best Direction in 1974 for Duvidha and later the National Film Award for his documentary film, Siddheshwari in 1989.