Today was the 86th birthday of Ritwik Ghatak, the powerful Bengali director, scriptwriter and documentary filmmaker, whose extraordinary genius was most enthusiastically received only after his death.
The man who could have been the father of alternative Indian cinema had his film Nagarik been released before Pather Panchali, Ritwik Ghatak spent his lifetime in the shadow of another Bengali stalwart, Oscar winning filmmaker Satyajit Ray, who never failed to take away the limelight, while the former struggled to finance his projects and battled relentlessly with a 'variety of personal and political demons.'
The man who could have been the father of alternative Indian cinema had his film Nagarik been released before Pather Panchali, Ritwik Ghatak spent his lifetime in the shadow of another Bengali stalwart, Oscar winning filmmaker Satyajit Ray, who never failed to take away the limelight, while the former struggled to finance his projects and battled relentlessly with a 'variety of personal and political demons.'