Satyajit Ray

Satyajit Ray

1921-05-02 – 1992-04-23 (age 70) Calcutta, Bengal Presidency, British India [now India]
View on IMDb ↗

Biography

Satyajit Ray (2 May 1921 – 23 April 1992) was a Bengali Indian filmmaker, widely regarded as one of the greatest filmmakers of the 20th century. Ray was born in the city of Calcutta into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature. Starting his career as a commercial artist, Ray was drawn into independent filmmaking after meeting French filmmaker Jean Renoir and viewing Vittorio De Sica's Italian neorealist film Bicycle Thieves (1948) during a visit to London.

Ray directed 36 films, including feature films, documentaries and shorts. He was also a fiction writer, publisher, illustrator, calligrapher, music composer, graphic designer and film critic. He authored several short stories and novels, primarily aimed at children and adolescents. Feluda, the sleuth, and Professor Shonku, the scientist in his science fiction stories, are popular fictional characters created by him. He was awarded an honorary degree by Oxford University.

Ray's first film, Pather Panchali (1955), won eleven international prizes, including the inaugural Best Human Document award at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival. This film, along with Aparajito (1956), and Apur Sansar (The World of Apu) (1959) form The Apu Trilogy. Ray did the scripting, casting, scoring, and editing, and designed his own credit titles and publicity material. Ray received many major awards in his career, including 32 Indian National Film Awards, a number of awards at international film festivals and award ceremonies, and an Academy Honorary Award in 1992. The Government of India honored him with the Bharat Ratna in 1992.

Photos

Known For

Feluda: 50 Years of Ray's Detective
Feluda: 50 Years of Ray's Detective

2019

as Self (archival footage)

Manik da: The Mystique of Pather Panchali
Manik da: The Mystique of Pather Panchali

2021

as Self (archive footage)

The Music of Satyajit Ray
Sikkim
Sikkim

1971

as Narrator (voice)

Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore

1961

as Narrator (voice)

Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray

1985

as Self

🎦
Ray: Life and Work of Satyajit Ray

1999

as Self (archive footage)

The Inner Eye
The Inner Eye

1972

as Narrator (voice)

🎦
The Tree

1998

as Self (archive footage)

Indian Talkie
Indian Talkie

1981

as Self