| 02.05.1921 * | |
| Place of Birth | Kolkata (West Bengal) |
| 23.04.1992 † |
Satyajit Ray certainly is the best known Indian filmmaker outside India. His achievements are extraordinary: Satyajit Ray became a synonyme for non-commercial Indian cinema on a high level ever since his first movie Pather Panchali was released. He also became a kind of role model for young non commercial filmmakers of the 1970s, who defined India's parallel cinema, e. g. Shyam Benegal, Govind Nihalani, Mani Kaul e. a.
Born in 1921 in Kolkata he grew up in very intellectual surroundings. His father was a close friend of Rabindranath Tagore. After his graduation in 1939 he started his studies at Shantiniketan, but returned to Kolkata in 1942, where he joined an advertising agency. In 1947 he started publishing articles on cinema in English and Bengali. Meeting with director Jean Renoir, who visited India for the shooting of his movie "The River" in 1949 and watching Vittorio De Sica's "Bicycle Thieves" had a big influence on Satyajit Ray.
Since 1950 he had the treatment of Pather Panchali in his pocket. He started shooting the film in 1952 and finished it only in 1955. It was first shown at the MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) in New York. In India the film was first shown in Kolkata. To the present day the film had a huge impact on filmmakers and audiences worldwide. It won Ray many awards on international film festivals.
In his 36 films he worked with many Indian actresses and actors. Young Sharmila Tagore was introduced in Ray's Apur Sansar, Jaya Bhaduri starred in Mahanagar and Waheeda Rehman played a role in Abhijan. Still Satyajit Ray always kept distance to the commercial fim industry. Only when he made his film Nayak about a fictious Bengali movie hero named Arindam Mukherjee, ha cast Bengali screen legend Uttam Kumar.
In 1962 Ray made his first colour film Kanchenjungha. Many of his movies are based on works of literature. His best known adaptation of a novel is Ghare Baire, which was finished in 1984. Two heart attacks during the shooting of this movie kept Ray from filmmaking for a long time. In 1991 Ray made his last movie Agantuk. In 1992 he received an Oscar for his lifetime achiviements. In the very same year he died on the 23rd of April.