Born in Dhaka on November 4, 1925, Ritwik Ghatak began his career as a litterateur quite early. After Partition in 1947, he felt restless and rootless at the same time. Disturbed by his rootlessness, he wrote, “My feet are not on my soil, that’s my
What do films like Habji Gabji, Hritpindo and Bela Shuru have in common? They all deal with different kinds of mental disorders of which, some are placed with proper research into the issue and the others are just done without much thought but only with
Buddhadeb Dasgupta will perhaps remain the most awarded and least screened Bengali filmmaker post the Ray-Sen-Ghatak era. Which is a tragedy for one of India’s most outstanding filmmakers, who acquired international fame for the lyrical quality of his work across three decades. He began with films
Filmmaker Anik Dutta has been drawing all kinds of attention thanks to his new film Aparajito, ostensibly a tribute to Satyajit Ray. Excerpts from an exclusive interview: • What triggered the desire to make a film on the journey of Ray to his becoming RAY? He occupied
The Little Goddess MAVA, a civil service organisation, was born in March 1993. Funded by Harish Sadani, MAVA is an acronym for Men Against Violence and Abuse and is based in Mumbai. Over the past 29 years, it has done yeoman service in spreading awareness about
Satyajit Ray by Nemai Ghosh The 27th Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF) Awards announced and distributed on May 1 at Rabindra Sadan pulled several surprises out of the magic hat. KIFF screened a completely mixed bunch of films in terms of form, content, genre classified into
A Bid for Bengal Having begun in 2014, the Kolkata People’s Collective recently hosted another edition of Kolkata People’s Film Festival. It has been multi-functional in spreading awareness through what it terms 'Pratirodher Cinema' (Cinema of Resistance), through screenings of films not only through an annual
Tollywood stars Nusrat and Yash feature in director Shieladitya Moulik’s new film Mastermoshai Apni Kichhu Dekhenni, scheduled to release later this month. One of the few Bengali films based on student politics in recent times, it follows in the footsteps of a handful of predecessors
Bengali cinema has recently come up with films that bridge the time-gap and space-gap with what may be termed “reunion” films. These films are characterised by a group of youngsters who were once bound by close friendship, in college, or, through a theatre group, coming
Olivia Das is a post-graduate in Cinema with a specialization in Audiography, having graduated from Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI) in 2013. She has been working on feature films, short films, and documentaries for more than 10 years, but the remarkable documentary ORA: