Mani Kaul (25 December 1944 – 6 July 2011) was an Indian Kashmiri Pandit director of Hindi films and an influential figure in 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. Starting 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.