Various programmes were held here on Saturday to mark the 99th birth anniversary of auteur Mrinal Sen, who along with Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak and Tapan Sinha pioneered the New Wave cinema in India.
Parallel cinema, or New Indian Cinema, was a film movement in Indian cinema that originated in the state of West Bengal in the 1950s as an alternative to the mainstream commercial Indian cinema.
Bengali filmmaker Srijit Mukherji announced that ‘Padatik, the foot soldier’, a fictionalised web series inspired by Sen’s life, would be released on the latter’s 100th birth anniversary next year.
He unveiled the web series poster which is based on a famous photograph of Sen lying on a thoroughfare in Kolkata during outdoor shooting.
“Was waiting since lockdown to announce this labour of love but had to wait till the 100th year celebrations start. So here goes. Celebrating the centenary of the convention-challenging, game-changing Doyen of World Cinema,” Mukherji tweeted, without divulging any more details including the cast.
“I have been nourishing the dream to capture Mrinalda’s life and works. A lover of his craft of film making since my youth,” he added.
‘With Mrinal Sen’, a documentary on the making of the legendary filmmaker’s ‘Ek Din Achanak’, was screened at Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI) here.
Sen’s favourite actors Dhritiman Chatterjee, Anjan Dutt, Mamata Shankar and Sreela Majumder, and filmmaker Goutam Ghose discussed the auteur's life and work and shared anecdotes about him before the screening, which was organised by the West Bengal Film Journalists’ Association along with SRFTI.
The director’s son Kunal Sen, who lives in the United States, said in a Facebook post, “Today my father would have been 99. As a filmmaker and a human being, he lived a very full life. As we get closer to his centenary, he is getting the best appreciation that a filmmaker can hope to receive.”
He said two feature films and a web series celebrating his father’s life are under production.
“Kaushik Ganguly is making a feature film, Palan, where he is taking the characters of Kharij and placing them 40 years ahead in current times. Many of the actors who were in Kharij are playing the same roles, but 40 years older. Srijit Mukherji is directing a fictionalised biography as a multipart web series. He is calling it Padatik (The Foot Soldier).
“Anjan Dutt is making a very personal feature film based on the interaction between the two of them as he started working with my father during the making of Chalchitra. We are all eagerly waiting to watch the finished films,” he added.
The legendary filmmaker, who was suffering from age-related ailments, died at his residence in Bhowanipore area of south Kolkata on December 30, 2018 at the age of 95.
