Showing posts with label Joy Bimal Roy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Joy Bimal Roy. Show all posts
Restored Do Bigha Zamin to premiere at Venice
8:59 AM
The restored version of Bimal Roy’s film will have its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in the Venice Classics section. Meanwhile, Bandini, Devdas and Madhumati are also being restored
Niharika Lal (BOMBAY TIMES; July 13, 2025)
Do Bigha Zamin (1953) marked a turning point in Indian cinema. While most films of that era were shot within the confines of a studio, director Bimal Roy broke the mould and took the camera to the streets, paving the way for realism in Indian filmmaking. Now the film, restored by the Film Heritage Foundation (FHF), the Criterion Collection and Janus Films, will be screened at the Venice Film Festival’s Classics section.
Gulzar, who worked with Roy, spoke to us about the film’s legacy. “It’s amazing that Do Bigha Zamin is restored and will be shown in Venice. The most important element is that all of his films were based on literature. Not many people know that Do Bigha Zamin is based on a poem by Rabindranath Tagore, with the same title.”
How was the film restored
Do Bigha Zamin was restored in 4K by the Criterion Collection and Janus Films, in collaboration with Film Heritage Foundation, at L’Immagine Ritrovata and Resillion, and in association with the Bimal Roy family.
The restoration process took over three years. It began in 2022, when the Criterion Collection/Janus Films and Film Heritage Foundation initiated the project. The FHF accessed the original camera negative and sound negative, which had been deposited by the Bimal Roy family at the NFDC–National Film Archive of India (NFAI) for preservation.
However, the sound negative presented several issues, including poor audio quality, interrupted dialogues, and missing sections. The original camera negative was also incomplete. A combined dupe negative - on Dupont/Kodak stock from 1954–55 was found at the British Film Institute (BFI) which was also used for the restoration
The restoration drew from the best surviving elements the 35 mm picture and sound negatives preserved at NFAI and the 35 mm combined dupe negative from the BFI.
Bimal da was the coolest director I have ever seen: Gulzar
I started working with Bimal da, who we used to call Dada, from the film “Kabuliwala” when I was his chief assistant. I have very fond memories of that time. People would say that Bimal-da was like a married print. In those days, the picture and sound negatives were separate and when they were brought together optically to make the release print, it would be called a married print.
Bimal da would shoot two shifts in a day – 7 am to 2 pm and 2 pm to 10 pm and would then sit in the editing room working till late night at Mohan Studios. People would say that he is married to films.
Bimal da was the coolest director I have ever seen. I learnt not only filmmaking from him, but the art of patience and stamina.
I am sharing a poetic portrait that I wrote on Bimal-da.
"The softly flowing river face shrouded in the evening mists
Eyes burning in the mistiness of a tawny visage
The spiral of smoke from the endlessly burning cigarette
The faraway voice heavy with sleep.
Shadowed below unknown thoughts that flew above
A face that seemed etched out of molten wax
The sound of every new dream transforms him
Making it seem he would neither sleep, nor wake, nor speak
A silent flowing river shrouded in evening mists."
(From the book “Caged . . .Memories Have Names”)
'Do Bigha Zamin changed the face of Indian cinema: Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, director of Film Heritage Foundation
Do Bigha Zamin changed the face of Indian cinema that brought filmmakers out of the studio to begin shooting on the streets. I am so happy that we were able to collaborate with The Criterion Collection/Janus Films to restore not only Do Bigha Zamin, but other classics of Bimal Roy like Devdas, Madhumati and Bandini, which are in the process of being restored.”
Do Bigha Zamin, is an unspoken autobiography of Bimal Roy: Rinki Roy Bhattacharya, Aparajita Roy Sinha, Joy Bimal Roy
After watching Vittorio De Sica’s film Bicycle Thieves, our father hoped Indian films would follow its deeply moving humanist vision. Do Bigha Zamin, is an unspoken autobiography of Bimal Roy who was cast off from his home in East Bengal in a similar episode like the hero, peasant, Sambhu Mahato. He never recovered from this cruel separation from his beloved birthplace.
Satyajit Ray on “Do Bigha Zamin”
“With his very first film Udayer Pathe (Humrahi in Hindi), Bimal Roy was able to sweep aside the cobwebs of the old tradition and introduce a realism and subtlety that was wholly suited to the cinema. He was undoubtedly a pioneer. He reached his peak with a film that still reverberates in the minds of those who saw it when it was first made. I refer to Do Bigha Zamin, which remains one of the landmarks of Indian cinema.”
Raj Kapoor on “Do Bigha Zamin”
Perhaps the best compliment came from Raj Kapoor, who upon watching the film, reportedly said, “I wish I had made this film.”
50 years after, Bimal Roy lives on, thanks to documentary on Kumbh Mela
7:28 AM
Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; January 8, 2016)
Today is Bimal Roy's 50th death anniversary. The filmmaker who bagged two National Awards, the International Prize at Cannes and 11 Filmfare Awards, with Madhumati taking home five, passed away on January 8, 1966, at the age of 54. After his untimely demise, the family retained his office at Mohan Studio in Andheri till they were told to vacate the premises by a builder. That's when his son, Joy Bimal Roy, visited the bungalow adjoining the studio, on the first floor of which was his baba's editing room and library where he kept stock shots and live sounds.
"This was in 1999 and it was there that I discovered half-a-dozen reels tagged Kumbh Mela. Baba had started a film, Amrit Kumbh Ki Khoj Mein, based on Sameresh Basu's novel, Amrita Kumbher Sandhane, and ma would fondly speak about some scenes from it, including one in which a father is separated from his son. Thinking it was that film, I started watching the negative and discovered it was one-hour footage of the Kumbh Mela in Allahabad and the negative was in perfect condition," says Joy.
He decided to edit and curate the footage as a documentary tribute to his father but didn't have the funds till Yash Chopra approached the family for the overseas video rights of Bimal Roy's films. When Joy told him about the Kumbh footage which he could incorporate as a bonus, Chopra allowed him the use of his editing facilities and his editor. Joy cut a 11-minute documentary which begins early in the day and ends with an aarti on the Ganga at night, with shots of pilgrims arriving by train, bus and on foot all day.
Since it was silent footage, he had to decide on the sound and after toying with the idea of using orchestra and even Indian classical music and Marathi folk, Joy was put in touch with a sound engineer, Arun Nambiar, who came up with the idea of using music from his father's own films. Arun left for Bangalore after two days, but Joy took his idea forward, using music from Devdas for the train shots and Madhumati for the mela sequences.
"There's a scene of a pandit speaking which I matched with a scene of another pandit speaking in Parakh. I have used one song, Kabuliwala's "Ganga aaye kahan se" since Kumbh is all about the Ganga," says Joy.
Not many in India however saw the documentary as it was only attached to the overseas DVDs. Joy did premiere it in January 2000 during an exhibition of his father's photographs at Mumbai's Nehru Centre. But the film arrived from Adlabs only on the morning of the screening, and when he played it, he discovered to his shock and horror that the sound was not in sync. "There's a technical issue when you transfer sound from film to video. So the "Ganga" song at the beginning started after the boat had passed and played on in the end after the aarti had ended, spilling into the title credits. I was so disappointed that I never looked at the film again. I did not even have a copy of it. But then my nephew and a journalist from Kolkata told me that it was available on YouTube. When I watched it, I realised it was a perfect print with the song in sync," says Joy who's finally happy he unveiled one of his baba's last footage on screen.
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