Vikas Bahl

Vikas Bahl was born in 1971 and he is an Indian film producer, screenwriter, and director, known for his work predominantly in Hindi cinema. He used to produce films under Phantom Films, and was the former head of UTV Spot Boy. He has won three National Film Awards and one Filmfare Award.

He is best known for his 2014 movie Queen, which won him the Filmfare Award for Best Director, alongside many more accolades.In October 2018, Bahl was accused of sexual harassment by a former employee of Phantom Films.After others made similar accusations, Phantom Films disbanded.

Bahl was born and brought up in Lajpat Nagar in Delhi, and his father worked with the Indian Oil Corporation. After his schooling from Sardar Patel Vidyalaya and graduation from Ramjas College, Delhi, he moved to Mumbai to pursue an MBA degree from SVKM's NMIMS.

Bahl started his career with advertising, working for several years in client servicing, before joining UTV Spotboy. In 2011, he started Phantom Films, along with Anurag Kashyap, Vikramaditya Motwane and Madhu Mantena. Over the years as a director he has worked with film directors such as Vishal Bhardwaj, Anurag Kashyap, Rajkumar Gupta and Vikramaditya Motwane.

In 2011, he co-directed Chillar Party and won the National Film Award for Best Screenplay, along with Nitesh Tiwari and Vijay Maurya. The film also garnered the National Film Award for Best Children's Film. In 2014 came his independent directorial venture Queen, starring Kangana Ranaut, which received critical and popular acclaim.

His 2015 movie Shaandar, a destination wedding film, was a flop and received neutral to negative responses. In October 2014, he directed a short film Going Home, featuring Alia Bhatt, on women's safety, which went viral on social media. Bahl next directed a biopic on mathematician and IIT-JEE coach Anand Kumar called Super 30, which featured Hrithik Roshan as Kumar..

In October 2018, in an interview with Huffington Post India, a former employee of Phantom Films accused Bahl of sexually harassing her on the set of the film Queen. Later, the film's lead actress Kangana Ranaut spoke out in support of the former Phantom employee, and corroborated her version of Bahl's sexual harassment. Following this, Nayani Dixit, Ranaut's co-star in the movie, also accused him of sexual misconduct.Phantom Films subsequently disbanded, and founders Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane made formal statements against Bahl and his sexual misdemeanors. In turn, Bahl sent them legal notices, citing defamation of character.