Cinema Tonight: Satyajit Ray's "Pather Panchali"

Satyajit Ray was a prolific Indian filmmaker, whose works - all spoken in Bengali - were paragons of humanistic storytelling. Akira Kurosawa said of his films, "It is the kind of cinema that flows with the serenity and nobility of a big river. Without the least effort and without any sudden jerks, Ray paints his picture, but its effect on the audience is to stir up deep passions. How does he achieve this? There is nothing irrelevant or haphazard in his cinematographic technique. In that lies the secret of its excellence."

Arguably his most famous work was also his pre-Bollywood debut effort: "Pather Panchali", first in the Apu trilogy, is about a boy growing up under horrendously impoverished conditions in rural India. A wonderful summary by Austin Film Society Director of Programming Chale Nafus can be found at the AFS website.

The film made an enormous impression on the worldwide community, becoming one of the first from India to be released internationally. Among many other awards, it received a Jury Prize from Cannes, the Best Foreign Language Film from Japan's Kinema Jumpo, and the Vatican Award from Rome.

As part of their 20th Anniversary series, AFS brings us a special 16mm-print screening of their of "Pather Panchali" at the Drafthouse Downtown. This is one of your rare opportunities to see the black and white masterpiece on the giant screen.