Bengaluru International Film Festival to mark centenary of Ritwik Ghatak

“Besides marking the centenary years of these three legends, there will be other sections such as restored classics and homage sections under which rich tributes will be paid to Shyam Benegal, who heralded the Indian parallel cinema movement in the 1970s with his landmark films that mirrored realistic portrayal of changing Indian society. The upcoming edition will feature 14 sections, three of which will be competitive categories: Asian, Indian and Kannada. “Besides, there will be a curated section on the theme of inclusivity and plurality,” N. Vidyashankar, Artistic Director, Biffes, told The Federal.

Under-appreciated in his lifetime

A major attraction for connoisseurs of cinema at the 16th edition is the films by Ritwik Ghatak, reckoned as a truly original director. His works remained mostly under-appreciated in his lifetime. Ghatak used to tell his close friends and students that his works would be recognised only after he was gone. It appears his prediction came true. The recently concluded Kolkata Film Festival showcased two films by Ghatak to mark his centenary year. The International Film Festival of Goa, which was held between November 20 and 28, might have forgotten the fact that the centenary year of Ghatak will commence from November 5. Ghatak was born at Jinda Bazar, Dhaka (now in Bangladesh), on November 4, 1925.

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However, a film club in Kerala’s Payyanur had organised a festival to celebrate the centenary year of Ghatak, one of the greatest filmmakers of the world. This festival screened five of Ghatak’s films: Megha Dhaka Tara, Ajantrik, Subarnarekha, Komal Gandhar and Jukti Takko Aar Gappo. For Mani Kaul, John Abraham, Kumar Shahani and Sayeed Akthar Mirza, his students, Ghatak was a cult figure, and their chief influence. “We are marking the centenary of Ritwik Ghatak and recognising his contribution to Indian cinema by screening his films and publishing a piece on his life and work during the Biffes,” Vidyashankar told The Federal.

'Go back Chauhan, Ghatak was here'

When the students of Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune protested against the appointment of Gajendra Chauhan as the Chairman of prestigious FTII, one slogan read: “Go back Chauhan, Ghatak was here.” Payal Kapadia, who received widespread acclaim for her debut fiction film All We Imagine As Lightwhich made history by winning the Grand Prix, the second highest honour at Cannes in 2024, led a four-month long protest against Chauhan. Undoubtedly, Ghatak is an icon now. His name is forever embedded in the binary that refuses to go away: “Ray or Ghatak?” Ghatak changed the narrative of Indian cinema, literally.

Abandoned realistic narrative

“Ghatak abandoned the realistic narrative to take cinema outside entertainment and Hollywood influence,” observes Sanjoy Mukhopadhyay, a former professor of film studies at Jadavpur University. Ghatak is also viewed as an Indian-Bangladesh filmmaker, film theorist, critic, author, actor and theatre director, who made eight feature-length films spanning the 1950s and 1970s. Ghatak, unlike his contemporary Satyajit Ray, was not widely celebrated during his lifetime. Titas Ekti Nadir Naam (A River Called Titas) was restored in 2010 by Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project. The restoration was done at the L’immagine Ritrovata Laboratory in Bologna.

Cinema for Ghatak was his personal statement

Interestingly, not even one of his films got major national awards. However, his film, Argentina (1955), is still regarded as his best. This film, which was released along with Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchalicame to reinforce a new thrust for Indian cinema.

Argentina is a reevaluation of Indian cinema, marking it as a seminal force in the development of the cinematic medium. It tells a tender yet poignant story of a taxi driver of agrarian background, who grapples with the alienation of his unyielding life. His only solace lies in his connection with a battered car on the verge of collapse. Ghatak’s trilogy, Meghe Dhaka Tara, Komal Gandharand Subarnarekhaforms a powerful exploration of the psychological scars left by the Partition of Bengal. These three films are celebrated as cinematic masterpieces, setting new benchmarks for Indian cinema.

His first film, Nagari, released after his demise

Ritwik Ghatak’s engagement with cinema began in 1949 when he started working as an assistant director to Manoj Bhattacharya in both direction and screenplay writing for Tathapiwhich was released in 1950. His first directorial venture was citizens (1952), completed three years before Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali. However, citizens was released 25 years later, in 1977, after Ghatak’s death.

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Thirteen classic documentaries

In his lifetime, Ghatak directed about 13 short films and documentaries. No one kept count of the number of his incomplete films, documentaries and screenplays aborted before shooting. Some of his important documentaries are Oroan (a tribal group), Ustad Allauddin Khan (a noted musician), Fear (Short film), Scientists of tomorrow, Amar Lenin (a short film which has been publicly screened in the USSR but not in India in 1970), Yes why? (short film), Where the Padma flows (partially in colour), Ram Kinkar (Ghatak died before completing this film). He wrote screenplays for traveler (Hindi), Madhumathi (Hindi), Swarlipi (Musical notations), Supposedly Mon, Dwiper Naam Tiyarang (An Island named Tiyarang) and Rajakanya (The Princess).

Influenced by Eisenstein and Pudovkin

All of Ghatak are about the social tensions and turmoil in Bengal in Western India. According to critics, Ghatak remained largely uninfluenced by his contemporaries, but he adored Russian masters such as Sergei Eisenstein and Vsevolod Pudovkin. But he excelled in creating his own film idiom. This understanding of cinema influenced his students, including Mani Kaul, John Abraham, Kumar Shahani and Sayeed Akthar Mirza. In their opinion, a quintessential character of Ghatak is rootedness and an in-depth understanding of his social reality. They adored his way of expressing human anguish. Ghatak always considered his cinema as his personal statement. His deep loyalty to the tradition of his craft and its environment influenced his own work.

The emergence of Ritwik Ghat was a phenomenon

Rows and Rows of Fences: Ritwik Ghatak on Cinema (Seagull Books, 2000), one of three volumes published on Ghatak in English, underscores the idea that when a significant work emerges in any art form, it adds something profound to the entire tradition of that art. The emergence of Ghatak was such a phenomenon in Indian film. The other two volumes on him include Cinema and Ipublished by Ritwik Memorial Trust in 1987, and On the Cultural Frontby Ritwik Memorial Trust in 1996. Beyond his cinematic brilliance, Ghatak was a multifaceted artist. He was an activist, writer, poet and his works are rooted in Marxist ideology, as he himself declared.

Ghatak influenced Kasaravalli and Balachander

National award-winning filmmaker Girish Kasaravalli admitted to this reporter once that he was inspired by Ghatak’s films. Refuting criticism that Ghatak’s films are irrational or melodramatic, Kasaravalli argued: “That very perception is wrong. Ghatak’s perspective was that of an affected person. He never practised any restraint or was politically correct. In his films, though he wanted to hear his cry, his technique was brilliant.” Meghe Dhaka Tara inspired Tamil filmmaker K. Balachander to make his own version of it, Aval Oru Thodar Kathai (She is a never-ending story, 1974) with substantial modifications. The film was so successful that it gave rise to a franchise of its own; it was remade in a number of languages, including Benkiyalli Aralida Hoovu in Kannada.

In his essay, ‘Film and I’, originally published in Montage (Volume ii, No.3, 1963), Ghatak states that “Film is basically a matter of personal statement. All arts are, in the final analysis. And film seems to be an art. Only film is a collective art. It needs varied and numerous talents. It does not follow that the film is not personal. It may be, at one end, the case of collective personality and at the other, may bear the stamp of one individual temperament upon all the other creative activities. To be art, either one or the other must be the case. Any work that lacks style and viewpoint necessarily lacks personality — and thereby ceases to be art.”