Ray's classics, "Rudali" to be screened at India fest in US

Los Angeles, Aug 10 (PTI) Twelve Indian films,
including Satyajit Ray's "Pather Panchali" and "Agantuk", and
critically-acclaimed "Rudali" and "Salaam Bombay" will be
screened at the 7th annual film festival of India at Atlanta
from August 21.

The films have been chosen from the archives of the
National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) to be shown at
the High Museum.

The High's curator of media arts Linda Dubler
partnered with A Agnihotri, director of the Indo-American Film
Society, to choose the films represented this year, a
statement said.

The inaugural film of the festival is "Dance of the
Wind." Director Rajan Khosa's first feature centres on
Pallavi, a singer of classical Hindustani music who is unable
to perform after the death of her mother.

Ray's last film "Agantuk", an amalgam of family drama
and mystery and a commentary on Indian society, will be the
highlight of day two.

The film follows middle-class housewife Anila, who
receives a letter from a man claiming to be her uncle. The
story of a woman torn between familial impulses and doubts,
this film shows all the virtues of a master artist in full
maturity.

"Pather Panchali", Ray's magnum opus, has been
preserved by the Satyajit Ray Preservation Project at the
Academy Film Archive. Acknowledged as a masterpiece of
humanist cinema, this film remains in the mind of the
moviegoer as a promise of what movie can be.

Kalpana Lajmi's "Rudali" is a stunningly-photographed
drama set in rural Rajasthan that introduces viewers to the
Indian tradition of professional mourners, women who are paid
to theatrically lament at funeral rites while the
much-acclaimed "Salaam Bombay" by Mira Nair captures the
teeming streets of Mumbai and the lives of its forgotten
children.

K M Madhusudhanan's "Bioscope" that tells of
Diwakaran, who in the early 20th century purchases a bioscope
film projector and tours local villages showing his films will
conclude the festival on September 13.

The other films to be screened are Piyush Jha's "Chalo
America", J Mahendran's "Sasanam", Jahar Kanugo's "Nishabdha",
Roopa Swaminathan's "Five by Four", "Sangemeel Se Mulaqat" by
Goutam Ghose and "Samar" by Shyam Benegal. PTI ZMN
SDE