Satyajit Ray: 1955–1968

The Academy Museum honors the centennial of writer, director, and composer Satyajit Ray (1921–1992) with a two-part retrospective.  

Part One focuses on Ray’s initial decade as a filmmaker, beginning with his groundbreaking debut Pather Panchali (1955). The first Indian/Bengali to receive an Academy Award, Ray became a director in his early thirties after a career as a graphic designer and quickly became a prolific storyteller. After the global phenomenon of Pather Panchali, and the subsequent films that make up the Apu Trilogy, which follows the titular protagonist from childhood to adulthood, Ray explored a range of genres over his thirty-plus films, continually returning to themes of tradition sparring with modernity.  

December’s screenings focus on Ray’s prolific and prodigious 1960s output. The decade finds the director experimenting on several fronts: creating shorter but no less consummate works—the omnibus Teen Kanya and the dark/light double bill Kapurush and Mahapurush—and filming in color for the first time, as we see in the modernist Kanchenjungha. Ray also confronts religion (Devi, Mahapurush), centers women’s perspectives (Mahanagar, Charulata), takes dark detours (Abhijan, Monihara), and creates a magical, musical adventure (Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne).  

All films will screen on preserved 35mm prints from the Academy Film Archive, except where noted. These include the Academy Film Archive’s landmark restoration of the Apu Trilogy from camera negatives nearly lost in a fire. Part 2 of this series will take place in 2022.