Mrinal Sen
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Mrinal Sen (also spelled
Mrinal Shen) is a Bengali Indian filmmaker. He was born
on 14 May 1923, in the town of Faridpur, now in Bangladesh
in a Hindu family. After finishing his high school there,
he left home to come to Calcutta as a student and studied
physics at the well-known Scottish Church College and
at the University of Calcutta. As a student, he got
involved with the cultural wing of the Communist Party.
Although he never became a member of the party, his
association with the socialist Indian People's Theatre
Association (IPTA) brought him close to a number of
like-minded culturally associated people.
Early life
His interest in films started after he stumbled upon
a book on film aesthetics. However his interest remained
mostly intellectual, and he was forced to take up
the job of a medical representative, which took him
away from Calcutta. This did not last very long, and
he came back to the city and eventually took a job
of an audio technician in a Calcutta film studio,
which eventually launched his film career.
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Directorial debut
Mrinal Sen made his first feature film, Raat Bhore, in 1955.
It had the iconic Uttam Kumar who was not a star then. The
movie was a let-down. His next film, Neel Akasher Neechey
(Under the Blue Sky), earned him local recognition, while
his third film, Baishey Shravan (the day when Rabindranath
Tagore died) was his first film that gave him international
exposure.
Sen and new cinema in India
After making five more films, he made a film with a shoe-string
budget provided by the Government of India. This film, Bhuvan
Shome (Mr. Shome), finally launched him as a major filmmaker,
both nationally and internationally. Bhuvan Shome also initiated
the "New Cinema" film movement in India.[2]
Social context and its political influence
The films that he made next were overtly political, and earned
him the reputation as a Marxist artist.[3] This was also the
time of large-scale political unrest throughout India. Particularly
in and around Calcutta, this period underwent what is now
known as the Naxalite movement. This phase was immediately
followed by a series of films where he shifted his focus,
and instead of looking for enemies outside, he looked for
the enemy within his own middle class society. This was arguably
his most creative phase.
Depiction of KolkataIn many Mrinal Sen movies from
Punascha to Mahaprithivi, Kolkata features prominently. He
has shown Kolkata as a character, and as an inspiration. He
has beautifully woven the people, value system, class difference
and the roads of the city into his movies and coming of age
for Kolkata, his El-Dorado.[4]
Experimentation, recognition and acclaimDuring this
period, he won a large number of international awards. It
could be argued that although his films show the development
of ideas from existentialism, surrealism, Marxism, German
expressionism, French Nouvelle Vague and Italian neorealism,
in their stylistic nuances, these films often parallel the
cinema of Woody Allen.[citation needed] Like Allen's cinema,
Sen's cinema for the most part does not provide a happy ending
or a definitive conclusion (unlike many of the films of Sen's
better known contemporary Satyajit Ray). In many of Sen's
later films, the audience becomes a participant in the process
of the development of the plot. The director invites and provokes
the audience into a shared process of forming multiple conclusions,
that are at the same time unique and different. The director
does not play the role of god, his audience does. It is not
really surprising that unlike Allen who has a steady niche
audience in the Western literati and aficionados, Sen's experimentation
with parallel cinema had significantly cost him much of a
devoted audience composing of largely the Calcutta based westernized
intelligentsia.
In 1982 he was a member of the jury at the 32nd Berlin International
Film Festival.[5] In 1983 he was a member of the jury at the
13th Moscow International Film Festival.[6]
Mrinal Sen never stopped experimenting with his medium. In
his later films he tried to move away from the narrative structure
and worked with very thin story lines. After a long gap of
eight years, at the age of eighty, he made his latest film,
Aamaar Bhuvan, in 2002.
During his career, Mrinal Sen's films have received awards
from almost all major film festivals, including Cannes, Berlin,
Venice, Moscow, Karlovy Vary, Montreal, Chicago, and Cairo.
Retrospectives of his films have been shown in almost all
major cities of the world. He has also received a number of
honorary doctorate degrees (D.Litt Honoris Causa) from various
universities. Mrinal Sen was also elected as the president
of the International Federation of the Film Societies. He
received the Taj Enlighten Tareef Award which is given for
a lifetime contribution to the world of cinema in 2008. He
also received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 10th edition
of the Osian's Cinefest Film Festival 2008.
On July 24, 2012, [Mrinal Sen was not invited to the function
organised by West Bengal government to felicitate film personalities
from the State. As per reports, his political views are believed
to be the reason for his omission from the function.
Awards
National awards
National Film Awards
1961: Certificate of Merit for Third Best Feature Film in
Bengali - Punascha[8]
Best Director
1969 Bhuvan Shome
1979 Ek Din Pratidin
1980 Akaler Sandhane
1984 Khandhar
Best Screenplay
1974 Padatik
1983 Akaler Sandhane
1984 Kharij
Filmfare Awards
Critics Award for Best Film
1976 Mrigayaa
Best Screenplay
1984 Khandhar
International awards
Moscow International Film Festival - Silver Prize
1975 Chorus[9]
1979 Parashuram[10]
Karlovy Vary International Film Festival - Special Jury Prize
1977 Oka Oori Katha
Berlin International Film Festival
Interfilm Award
1979 Parashuram
1981 Akaler Sandhane
Grand Jury Prize[11]
1981 Akaler Sandhane
Cannes Film Festival - Jury Prize
1983 Kharij
Valladolid International Film Festival - Golden Spike
1983 Kharij
Chicago International Film Festival - Gold Hugo
1984 Khandhar
Montreal World Film Festival - Special Prize of the Jury
1984 Khandhar
Venice Film Festival - Honorable Mention
1989 Ek Din Achanak
{{Awd|Cairo International Film Festival - Silver Pyramid for
Best Director|2002|Aamaar
State honors
He is also the recipient of many state-awarded honors.
In 1981, the Government of India awarded him with the Padma
Bhushan.
In 1985, President François Mitterrand, the President
of France awarded him the Commandeur de Ordre des Arts et
des Lettres (Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters),
the highest civilian honour conferred by that country, in
recognition of significant contributions to the arts, literature,
or the propagation of these fields.[12]
He was made an Honorary Member of the Indian Parliament from
1998 to 2003.
In 2000, President Vladimir Putin of the Russian federation
honored him with the Order of Friendship.
In 2005, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, the highest honor given
to an Indian filmmaker was awarded to him by the Government
of India.
Trivia
He is a friend of Gabriel García Márquez and
had often been invited as a judge in international film festivals.
In 2004, Mrinal Sen completed his autobiographical book, Always
Being Born.
Life Time Achievement Award at 5th Global Film Festival Noida
2012.
Filmography
Feature films
Raat Bhore (The Dawn) (1955)
Neel Akasher Neechey (Under the Blue Sky) (1958)
Baishey Sravan (Wedding Day) (1960)
Punascha (Over Again) (1961)
Abasheshe (And at Last) (1963)
Pratinidhi (The Representative) (1964)
Akash Kusum (Up in the Clouds) (1965)
Matira Manisha (Man of the Soil) (1966)
Bhuvan Shome (Mr. Bhuvan Shome) (1969)
Interview (1971)
Ek Adhuri Kahani (An Unfinished Story) (1971)
Calcutta 71 (1972)
Padatik (The Guerilla Fighter) (1973)
Chorus (1974)
Mrigayaa (The Royal Hunt) (1976)
Oka Oori Katha (The Outsiders) (1977)
Parasuram (The Man With the Axe) (1978)
Ek Din Pratidin (And Quiet Rolls the Dawn) (1979)
Akaler Sandhane (In Search of Famine) (1980)
Chalchitra (The Kaleidoscope) (1981)
Kharij (The Case is Closed) (1982)
Khandhar (The Ruins) (1983)
Genesis (1986)
Ek Din Achanak (Suddenly, One Day) (1989)
Mahaprithivi (World Within, World Without) (1991)
Antareen (The Confined) (1993)
Aamaar Bhuvan (This, My Land) (2002)
Short films
Ichhapuran (The Wish Fulfillment) (1970)
Tasveer Apni Apni (Portrait of an Average Man) (1984)
Aparajit (Unvanquished) (198687)
Kabhi Door Kabhi Paas (Sometimes Far, Sometimes Near) (198687)
Swamvar (The Courtship) (198687)
Aina (The Mirror) (198687)
Ravivar (Sunday) (198687)
Aajkaal (These Days) (198687)
Do Bahene (Two Sisters) (198687)
Jit (Win) (198687)
Saalgira (Anniversary) (198687)
Shawl (198687)
Ajnabi (The Stranger) (198687)
Das Saal Baad (Ten Years Later) (198687)
Documentaries
Moving Perspectives (1967)
Tripura Prasanga (1982)
City Life Calcutta My El Dorado (1989)
And the Show Goes On - Indian Chapter (1999)
Films on Mrinal Sen
Ten Days in Calcutta - A Portrait of Mrinal Sen (Directed
by Reinhard Hauff) (1984)
With Mrinal Sen (Directed by Sanjay Bhattacharya and Rahul
Bose) (1989)
Portrait of a Filmmaker (Directed by Romesh Sharma) (1999)
A man behind the curtain (Directed by Supantho Bhattacharya)
(1998)
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/
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