Satyajit Ray

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Biography

Satyajit Ray began his professional career as a visualizer in a British advertising firm in Calcutta. His interest in films began before he founded the Calcutta Film Society in 1947. By then, he had already illustrated an edition of Bibhutibhushan Bandyapadhya's novel, Pather Panchali, and had develoled a passion for writing scenarios of prospective films. What started as a hobby, became a lifetime's occupation.

On a visit to England, he saw more than a hundred films including Vittorio De Sica's Bycicle Thief. He returned with the conviction that it is possible to make a realistic cinema with an almost entirely amateur cast. His Pather Panchali made on a small budget, with mostly new faces both in the cast and the crew and nearly all of it shot outdoors, began a new era of Indian Cinema.

The film brought him fame at home and abroad and laid the foundations for a long and illustrious career.

Throughout his career, Ray continued to receive awards, both from his own people and from the people of other nations and culture. The thundering applause of the years culminated in an Oscar for Lifetime achievement from the American Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences.