Programmed May 2021

Satyajit Ray at 100

Featuring Shyam Benegal’s 1984 feature documentary Satyajit Ray “Not to have seen the cinema of Satyajit Ray means existing in the world without seeing the sun or the moon,” observed Akira Kurosawa with regards to the Indian master who would have turned one hundred this May. Influenced by the poetic humanism of Jean Renoir and the Italian neorealist movement, Ray self-financed his landmark debut Pather Panchali —the first installment of his internationally celebrated Apu Trilogy, a cycle of richly humane masterworks that traces its title character’s journey from boyhood to maturity. Over the course of a long, remarkably varied career that encompassed forays into a wide array of genres—including period pieces, comedies, detective mysteries, and documentaries—Ray applied his compassionate, lyrical vision…