#RomaFF15 | Retrospective

The retrospective of the fifteenth Rome Film Fest, curated by Mario Sesti, will be dedicated to Satyajit Ray, considered one of the greatest filmmakers in the history of the seventh art.
From the point of view of cinema, today, the mix of non-professional actors and solid performers, the significance of the landscape and the charismatic aura of the bodies, the concentration on the primary needs of hunger and the centrality of family and solitude, of a distant past and an incumbent modernity, make Ray’s work something of a missing link between Rossellini and Pasolini. Before the auteur policy in Europe deflagrated into the New Wave, since the late 1950s Ray had been not only the screenwriter and director of his films, but the composer as well. He actively participated in furnishing and building his sets, like Welles did for his films, being a professional novelist and prominent graphic artist, he completed his scripts and illustrated them with drawings that accompanied the dialogues. Ray, whose importance in Indian culture is greater than we can imagine, worked on cinema as the most syncretic of languages, without foregoing the European excellence of masters such as Renoir (with whom he worked) or the deepest Indian culture, delving his deepest roots into music, visual sophistication and anthropology. Inertia, apathy, silence are the primary tools that his characters use to defend themselves against adversity and injustice, against a hostile context and unresolved ambition, a strategy that is espoused in Asia and unrecognized by the West. But the freedom with which he borrowed unreservedly from cinema, from literature, from music, from refined lighting styles and remarkable actors, bears witness to an artist who had no limits and no frontiers, and who breezily and confidently invented a unique and admirable language.
 
THE FILMS
 
AGANTUK | THE STRANGER
by Satyajit Ray, India, France, 1991, 120’,
Cast: Utpal Dutt, Mamata Shankar, Deepankar Dey, Bikram Bhattacharya, Rabi Ghosh, Dhritiman Chatterjee
 
APARAJITO | THE UNVANQUISHED
By Satyajit Ray, India, 1956, B/N B/W, 110’, Bengali
Cast: Pinaki Sen Gupta, Smaran Ghosal, Karuna Bannerjee, Kanu Bannerjee, Subodh Ganguli, Charuprakash Ghosh
 
APUR SANSAR | THE WORLD OF APU
by Satyajit Ray, India, 1959, 105’
Cast: Soumitra Chatterjee, Sharmila Tagore, Alok Chakravarty, Swapan Mukherjee, Dhiresh Majumdar, Sefalika Devi
 
ARANYER DIN RATRI | DAYS AND NIGHTS IN THE FOREST
by Satyajit Ray, India, 1970, 115’
Cast Soumitra Chatterjee, Subhendu Chatterjee, Samit Bhanja, Rabi Ghosh, Sharmila Tagore, Kaberi Bose
 
ASHANI SANKET | DISTANT THUNDER
by Satyajit Ray, India, 1973, 101’
Cast: Soumitra Chatterjee, Bobita, Sandhya Roy, Ramesh Mukherjee, Chitra Banerjee, Govinda Chakravarty
 
CHARULATA | THE LONELY WIFE
by Satyajit Ray, India, 1964, 117’
Cast: Soumitra Chatterjee, Madhabi Mukherjee, Shailen Mukherjee, Shyamal Ghoshal, Gitali Roy, Subrata Sen
In collaboration with River to River Florence Indian Film Festival
 
DEVI | THE GODDESS
by Satyajit Ray, India, 1960, 93’
Cast: Sharmila Tagore, Soumitra Chatterjee, Chhabi Biswas, Karuna Bannerjee, Purnendu Mukherjee, Arpan Chowdhury
 
JALSAGHAR | THE MUSIC ROOM
by Satyajit Ray, India, 1958, 100’
Cast: Chhabi Biswas, Padma Devi, Gangapada Basu, Tulsi Lahiri, Kali Sarkar, Pinaki Sen Gupta
 
KANCHENJUNGHA
by Satyajit Ray, India, 1962, 102’
Cast: Chhabi Biswas, Karuna Bannerjee, Anubha Gupta, Pahari Sanyal, Alakananda Roy, Arun Mukherjee, Subrata Sen
 
KAPURUSH | THE COWARD
by Satyajit Ray, India, 1965, 70’
Cast: Soumitra Chatterjee, Madhabi Mukherjee, Haradhan Bannerjee, Santi Chatterjee, Satish Haldar, Deochand Lal
 
MAHANAGAR | THE BIG CITY
by Satyajit Ray, India, 1963, 136’
Cast: Madhabi Mukherjee, Anil Chatterjee, Haradhan Bannerjee, Jaya Bhaduri, Sefalika Devi, Vicky Redwood
 
PARASH PATHAR | THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE
by Satyajit Ray, India, 1958, 111’
Cast: Tulsi Chakravarty, Ranibala Devi, Kali Bannerjee, Gangapada Basu, Jahar Roy, Haridhan Chatterjee
 
PATHER PANCHALI | SONG OF THE LITTLE ROAD
by Satyajit Ray, India, 1955, 125’
Cast: Kanu Bannerjee, Karuna Bannerjee, Subir Banerjee, Runki Banerjee, Uma Das Gupta, Chunibala Devi
 
PRATIDWANDI | THE ADVERSARY
by Satyajit Ray, India, 1970, 110’
Cast: Dhritiman Chatterjee, Indira Devi, Krishna Bose, Debraj Ray, Joyshree Roy, Dhara Roy
 
SHATRANJ KE KHILARI | THE CHESS PLAYERS | I GIOCATORI DI SCACCHI
by Satyajit Ray, India, 1977, 129’,
Cast: Sanjeev Kumar, Saeed Jaffrey, Shabana Azmi, Farida Jalal, Amjad Khan, Richard Attenborough