The Hindu : National : Pather Panchali feted

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Friday, May 13, 2005

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National

Pather Panchali feted

NEW DELHI: The Satyajit Ray masterpiece Pather Panchali earned accolades half a century after its original release, as it opened the Classics section of the Cannes Film Festival on Thursday.

The 1955 film by the Indian master was the first movie at the `Cannes Classics', which has films of great directors such as Louis Malle, Jean Renoir and Pier Paolo Pasolini. Pather Panchali had received one of the major awards of the event, the `Best Human Document', in 1956.

The faultless Pather Panchali screening was largely due to the preservation efforts of the Film Foundation founded by the American Martin Scorsese along with Woody Allen, Francis Ford Coppola, Stanley Kubrick, George Lucas, Sydney Pollack, Robert Redford, Steven Spielberg and later joined by Robert Altman and Clint Eastwood.

The Foundation, whose mission is to preserve and restore works in order to ensure the future of cinema of the past, is paying tributes to two films at this year's Cannes Festival — Pather Panchali and The River (1951) by Jean Renoir. Pather Panchali was restored by the Academy Film Archive and the Renoir film by the archive in association with the British Film Institute, Janus Film and the Hollywood Press Association. According to Information and Broadcasting Minister S. Jaipal Reddy, the Government will make efforts to secure a restored print of Pather Panchali from the Academy Film Archive.

UNI

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