Mrinal Sen

Artist

Born:14 May 1923

Died:30 December 2018

He was an Indian Bengali filmmaker based in Kolkata.
He is considered to be one of the greatest filmmakers of the 20th century.
Like the works of Ray and Ghatak, his cinema was known for its artistic depiction of social reality.
Although the three directors shared a healthy rivalry, they were ardent admirers of each other’s work, and in so doing, they charted the independent trajectory of parallel cinema, as a counterpoint to the mainstream fare of Hindi cinema in India.
He was an ardent follower of Marxist philosophy.
His interest in film making began 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 as an audio technician in a Calcutta film studio, which launched his film career.
During his career, His 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 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.