Kolkata: A documentary film by director Sangeeta Datta on the life and works of national award-winning auteur Rituparno Ghosh has been selected for screening at the New York Indian Film Festival.
Ghosh, an avant garde director of Bengali films, passed away in 2013 at the age of 49, following a cardiac arrest.
The documentary, ‘Bird of Dusk’ features Ghosh’s interviews, conversations and texts from personal narratives in ‘First Person’, published serially in a regional newspaper’s Sunday magazine, informed Dutt. She also said that she had assisted the filmmaker in his award-winning venture ‘Chokher Bali’.
‘Bird of Dusk’ is a Bengali film with English sub-titles. It was was shot over the course of a year, Dutta said while talking to the media recently during a discussion on the multi-faceted roles of Ghosh – as a filmmaker, music composer-lyricist, adman and magazine editor.
“The 100-minute film comprises views of eminent personalities who had known him or worked with him, including actors Soumitra Chatterjee, Amitabh Bachchan, Sharmila Tagore, Aparna Sen, Prosenjit Chatterjee, Arjun Rampal, Konkona Sen Sharma and Nandita Das,” Dutta said.
The 18th edition of New York Indian Film Festival (NYIFF), presented by the Indo-American Arts Council, will taken place May 7 and 12. The docu-feature on Ghosh will be screened May 10 at Village East Cinema, New York City.
Dutta, who has earlier made ‘Life Goes On’ with Sharmila Tagore, Om Puri and Soha Ali Khan, said ‘Bird of Dusk’ charts the journey of a young actor set out to research and study about Ghosh’s life and filmography.
Actor Prosenjit Chatterjee, who has worked with the renowned filmmaker in nine films, said Ghosh’s contributions have been vital for changing the face of Bengali cinema.
“Rituparno Ghosh reinvented my image from a typical mainstream hero to a serious actor in Chokher Bali (2003) and subsequent films,” pointed out Prosenjit.
