On Women's Day 2017, here's a big salute to successful Bollywood female directors

In today’s Bollywood female filmmakers are known to be in par with their male counterparts, and have successfully carved their own recognition with meaningful cinema. But there were days when it was said to be a male dominated industry, especially directing. Women were on the silver screen just to add glamour. Names like Deepa Mehta, Mira Nair, who have made a niche for themselves in the west, and many others have delivered beautiful and entertaining films in Bollywood as well. Here we present a list of women filmmakers who redefined cinema.

Zoya Akhtar: Zoya narrates coming-of-age stories and portray larger-than-life characters. Her films like “Luck By Chance”, “Bombay Talkies”, “Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara” and “Dil Dhadakne Do”, talk about complex relationships between two lovers or friends.

Farah Khan: The choreographer-turned-filmmaker has always focused on helming masala entertainers. Her films like “Main Hoon Na”, “Om Shanti Om”, “Tees Maar Khan” and “Happy New Year”are for pure entertainment purpose.

Meghna Gulzar: Meghna can be called as one of the fearless filmmakers of Bollywood, who doesn't deter from making sensitive films, which often remain untouched by the male filmmakers. Her directorial debut “Filhaal”, dealt with a sensitive topic of surrogacy.

Nandita Das Having achieved a fair amount of acclaim for her acting prowess, Nandita decided to don the director's hat with 'Firaaq' - a story set one month after the ghastly Gujarat riots. While the film is yet to release in India, it has made the rounds of several prestigious international film festivals. In fact those who have seen the film are pretty confident that Nandita would make for an equally promising director too.

Reema Kagti: Reema has explored different genre of films. After trying her hands in comedy drama “Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd”, and “Talaash”, a psychological horror thriller, Kagti is next working on sports biopic Gold, starring Akshay Kumar.