India
113
69th edition. October 18-26, 2024
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‘The Cloud-Capped Star’ tells the story of a family of refugees from East Pakistan, who have been uprooted by the Partition of India and come to depend on their eldest daughter, the self-sacrificing Nita, in the suburbs of Calcutta. She watches helplessly as her own hopes and desires are pushed aside time and again by those of her siblings and parents, until all her chances for happiness evaporate, leaving her crushed and ailing.
Bengali director born in Dhaka (1925-1976). Along with prominent contemporary Bengali filmmakers Satyajit Ray, Tapan Sinha and Mrinal Sen, Ritwik Ghatak’s cinema rejects the conventions of mainstream Indian cinema and is primarily remembered for its meticulous depiction of social reality, partition and feminism. His filmography includes films like ‘Ajantrik’ (1958), ‘Bari Thekey Paliye’ (1958), ‘The Cloud-Capped Star’ (1960), ‘Komal Gandhar’ (1961), ‘Subarnarekha’ (1965) or ‘Nagarik’ (1977), and it was punctuated with a spurt of documentaries. The Government of India honoured him with the Padma Shri for Arts in 1970.
