Pather Panchali ¹⁹⁵⁵

Master filmmaker Satyajit Ray shows rural Bengali life, re-released in a 4K restored version by Eye Filmmuseum.

Actually, the heyday of Italian neorealism was already over when director Ray made the most important Indian representative of the genre with Pather Panchali. The film was the first of the so-called Apu trilogy in which he sheds light on everyday life at the bottom of Indian society, using three phases of the title character's life.

In Pather Panchali, Apu's father tries to improve his family's living conditions by finding work in the city. In his absence, the lives of those left behind only get worse, but fortunately Ray's cinematic palette is not all gloom. Amidst all the tragedy, there is also room for poetry and humour. The Indian filmmaker saw De Sica's neorealist masterpiece Ladri di biciclette during a visit to Europe and found his calling. "Who says you can't use amateur actors? Who says you can't shoot a film in the rain?" With his documentary-like yet lyrical style, Satyajit Ray offered an alternative to traditional Bollywood cinema. His innovative work – the Apu trilogy marked the birth of an independent Indian cinema – was awarded the Best Human Document Award at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival.

Satyajit Ray (1921-1992) is without a doubt one of India's greatest filmmakers. Akira Kurosawa compared not having seen his films to 'being in the world without ever having seen the sun or the moon'. Contemporary filmmakers such as Wes Anderson and Chris Nolan are also admirers of his work.