Satyajit Ray Film Festival in NYC April 15-30

I was thinking, maybe the few people who read this blog in the New York City area might want to know about this if they haven’t found out already.  A friend sent me an e-mail about this last night. Satyajit Ray – that’s pretty good…  But I wish there were a festival showing some of my favorite Golden Age Bollywood movies; I would love that.  (There are a few theaters in New York where you can see new, first run Bollywood movies, but there are never any classic retrospectives, as far as a I know.  I think a Raj Kapoor festival would be particularly spectacular – Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai, Chori Chori, Shree 420, and Awara on the big screen – ah, that would be a dream.   Also, a classic Tamil movie festival would be nice (Padmini bharatanatyam on a huge screen – wouldn’t that be wonderful?).  And maybe some of those classic Noor Jehan films that I’m getting into – especially if there’s excellent cinema sound.) But that’s not going to happen here in New York.  By the way, the festival also had some obnoxious (I thought) promotional copy, which began, “You’ve seen Slumdog Millionaire…”  Arrrggh!  (I thought they wrote that somewhere on the site, but I can’t find it now.  Just as well…)   They’re also charging $11 a movie (which is actually cheaper than some theaters showing new movies, but still not what I’m usually up for paying these days), and I know I can find most of these films for free, with subtitles, on YouTube.  (I also found a store selling old Satyajit Ray movies on DVD in Jakcson Heights for $5 a piece a few weeks ago.)  But anyway… I might try to catch Jalsaghar on April 16 – the music should sound really nice, and it would be nice to see that fine Kathak dance on the big screen.  (But I’ve been a little under the proverbial weather, so we’ll see.)

The films are at the Walter Reade Theater in Lincoln Center.  For a full schedule and descriptions, go here. 

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P.S. 4/16:   No, I didn’t make it to Jalsaghar, but I’m sure I’ll see it another time.  I don’t think I’ll be going to this festival much myself, actually, but there’s plenty to see for those who are up to it.  And they do have a very useful guide to their films, along with a detailed schedule, on their site (which is one reason I decided simply to leave the link here for referral rather than leaving a list of the whole schedule, which was taking up a lot of space exactly because there is so much).