Somebody has rightly said, “So many languages in this world and smile speaks them all”. So, you can imagine how many people in this world Renuka Shahane must have communicated with, through her pleasant smile. If you ask her, she smiles; adding you to the unaccountable list of admirers. This popular actress and TV anchor, known for her characteristic smile, has now turned a film maker with her new Marathi film ‘Rita’. This will also be her directorial debut, as besides direction she has also written screenplay and dialogues of this film. Based on the original novel ‘Rita Welinkar’ penned by her mother- Shanta Gokhale, Renuka has hardly made any changes to bring alive the Rita Welinkar of 1995 on mega screen. Having assertively opted for her longtime friend Pallavi Joshi, to play the central character of Rita, she is now happy that the film has come out very well and is now due for release on 4th September 2009.

It was a longtime ambition of Renuka to make a film and she had even moved in that direction way back in 1995, but due to her busy schedule and later after her marriage to Ashutosh Rana and then bringing up two little kids- Shauryaman and Satyendra , it seemed difficult. However, now she is back to her field, in a new role as a director. Renuka has lot of hopes from ‘Rita’ as she feels that Marathi film industry is changing and there is a big demand for scripts which are powerful and character oriented to deliver a social message.

Having been brought up in Mumbai’s Dadar area, she finished her schooling from IES’s King George English school. Later, joined St. Xavier’s College and was very much part of cultural fests and actively participated in ‘Mallhar’. Having done her MA in Clinical psychology, Renuka instead of practicing the profession, preferred to host Antakshari and TV programmes. When she gave screen test for a Reader , during the TV show PC aur Mausi, her desire to become host came true. Siddharth Kak’s TV show ‘Surabhi’ not only gave her recognition as a popular TV host, but also brought her suitable roles in films and TV serials. Her performance in ‘Hum Aap ke Hain Kaun’ was memorable one. On the small screen she was well accepted in different roles through serials like ‘Kora Kagaz’, ‘Imtihaan’ ‘Tejaswini’ and others. She also displayed her talent of gifted voice through Close-up Antakshari’ programme in the capacity of host again. Now, it’s time for her to give back something to her admirers and there cannot be anything better than directing a film.