MIFF 2020 to showcase Satyajit Ray’s documentaries

The 16th Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF) 2020 is just a week away. This year, one of the highlights of the festival will be the showcasing of documentaries made by the legendary filmmaker Satyajit Ray.

Smita Vats Sharma, director, MIFF, and director general of the Films Division of the Union information and broadcasting ministry, told the media, “This year his birth centenary celebrations are beginning. He was such a versatile filmmaker. We all know a lot about his feature films. But he worked a lot in the non-feature space as well. So, selected documentaries of his will be screened.”

Sharma spoke about a couple of documentaries to look forward to. “He made a documentary called Pikoo. The name Pikoo will make you recall a recent movie. Pikoo is a documentary he made in 1980. In this film, he sees Kolkata through the point of view of a six-year-old girl. The legendary filmmaker will go to the level of a kid to show a day is spent. This topic itself is so interesting,” she said.

The festival will also showcase a documentary on Ray himself, titled Satyajit Ray (1982), which was directed by another great of Indian cinema, Shyam Benegal.

“Shyam Benegal had a two-year-long conversation where he tried to explore what kind of filmmaker Satyajit Ray was," Sharma said. "Such legendary masterpieces that give you a peek into the versatility of this legendary filmmaker have been curated as part of the Satyajit Ray package.”