Renowned film director Satyajit Ray’s early black and white movies have all been restored and will be showcased before global audiences soon, said the movie maestro’s son Sandip Ray on Tuesday.
He said that his father’s works remained popular because of an element of "timelessness" in the films he made starting with ‘Pather Panchali’ (Song of the Road) which was released in 1955, winning laurels at the Cannes Festival.
"We could not do much to celebrate Satyajit Ray’s 100th birth anniversary (in 2021) because of the pandemic. We will chalk out a programme to celebrate it on a grander scale including having a retrospective of his cinema.
"Most of his movies – all the black and white films included – have been restored. We are now working on restoring 'Kanchenjunga' (a family drama based on an original Ray screenplay)," said Sandip Ray, a well-known film director in his own right, in an interview to PTI Video.
The younger Ray who has made a series of detective movies based on stories written by his father, a versatile writer, artist and graphic designer besides being a director, was holding a small celebration of his father’s 102nd birth anniversary at his Bishop Lefroy Road flat in Kolkata.
Talking about the state of his father’s movie prints, scripts and other documents, Sandip Ray said, "We are alert and will see to it that his films do not suffer any more damage."
Many of Ray’s early works had suffered damage due to time and exposure to the elements but a painstaking job by a foundation has seen the prints restored and digitised.
The younger Ray said that he did not wish to take up the projects his father had wanted to make movies on but could not such as on the Mahabharata character ‘Karna’.
“We do not wish to work on them (the shelved project) as only Satyajit Ray could have done justice to them,” he said.
Speaking about his own plans, he said another 'Feluda' (a detective character created by his father) novel will be taken up for adaptation soon, casting actor Indraneil Sengupta who had delivered a credible performance in the last Feluda film on the big screen, 'Hatyapuri' (Murder in Puri), in the key role of the fictional super-sleuth.
Asserting more films on Feluda's exploits will be made by him in future, Sandip Ray clarified: "We have no issue if Feluda stories are adapted for net-based platforms. There can be creative liberty. But we hope the spirit of the main story is retained in the adaptations."
Sandip said directors like Srijit Mukherjee and now Arindam Sil, who are adapting Feluda on OTT, are both talented filmmakers and he has "full faith" in them.
The younger Ray also indicated that he would be making a second movie based on another of his father’s fictional characters – Prof Shonku – a brilliant if slightly eccentric scientist and inventor who lives with his cat named after Sir Issac Newton.
