Set against a 1960's backdrop leading up to Bangladesh's independence from Pakistan, THE CLAY BIRD tells the story of Anu, a boy sent away by his father to an Islamic school. Far from his family and the warmth of his region's Hindu festivities, Anu struggles to break out of his shell and adapt to the school's harsh monastic life. As the political divisions in the country intensify, an increasing split develops between the school's students, just as...

Set in late 19th-century, pre-independence India, this film is about a woman's artistic and romantic yearning. It is about the lonely wife of a workaholic newspaper editor, Charulata, whose beautiful face masks a burning creativity. When her husband's poet cousin comes to stay with them, Charulata finds herself both inspired by him creatively and dangerously drawn to him physically. A delicate tale of a marriage in jeopardy and a woman taking the...

A woman wishes her husband would be more worldly, and not so naive. On her husband's 40th birthday, when everything in his life goes wrong, he reconnects with a best friend he hasn't seen in decades. This friendship causes him to change, and causes his wife's life to be torn apart. She got what she wished most for, but it turns out it was not what she wanted.

Set in mid-1950s Calcutta and directed by Satyajit Ray, this story follows the personal triumphs and frustrations of Arati, who decides, despite the initial protests of her bank-clerk husband, to take a job to help support their family. With remarkable sensitivity and attention to the details of everyday working-class life, Ray gradually builds a powerful human drama that is at once a hopeful morality tale and a commentary on the identity of the contemporary...

River called Titas: "A saga ... [of] the tumultuous lives of people in fishing villages along the banks of the Titas River in pre-Partition East Bengal"--Container. Dry summer: "Follows the machinations of an unrepentantly selfish tobacco farmer who builds a dam to prevent water from flowing downhill to his neighbors' crops. ... Alongside this tale ... is one of overheated desire, as a love triangle develops between the farmer, his more decent brother,...

Story of a rural family cursed with bad luck. Father Hari is a dreamer and poet, while his hard-working wife struggles to feed the family. But Durga, a free-spirited and petty thief, brings tragedy to the family in a moment's carelessness. The first in the Apu series.

Two decades after its original negatives were burned in a fire, Satyajit Ray's breathtaking milestone of world cinema rises from the ashes in a meticulously reconstructed new restoration of a family saga. Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road) follows a poor Bengali family living in a village. The boy Apu's development grows as he witnesses the protection of family members' reputations, the relationship of the family group to an elderly 'aunt',...

Directed by the visionary Bengali filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak, tells the story of a family that has been uprooted by the Partition of India and come to depend on its eldest daughter, the self-sacrificing Neeta. She watches helplessly as her own hopes and desires are pushed aside time and again by those of her siblings and parents, until all her chances for happiness evaporate, leaving her crushed and ailing.