Amazing news for Satyajit Ray films

[Dragun]

Originally Posted by ravenus

You mean BFI

Yes. That's what happens when I post late at night after a couple of beers!

Masters of Cinema released a rather nice DVD (now OOP) of Abhijan years ago. I wonder if they'll release a Blu-Ray.

Unfortunately the negatives to some of Ray's films were lost in a fire at Henderson's Film Laboratories in 1993.

http://satyajitray.ucsc.edu/articles/sragow.html

Not even the combined clout of Merchant and the Academy can protect films from acts of God: a fire at the Henderson Film Laboratories, in London, on July 4 of last year destroyed the original negatives of six Ray classics licensed to Merchant: Pather Panchali, Aparajito, The World of Apu (1959), The Music Room (1958), Devi, and Three Daughters. Friend says that the bad shape the negatives were in before the blaze mitigated the tragedy — he was planning to use alternative sources anyway. In his view, the loss underscores the need to gather backup materials and store them at separate locations.

I hope the complete Teen Kanya is one of the Criterion titles. The film was released outside India as "Two Daughters" with one of the three short films (Monihara) cut from the film.

I hope these films sell well, encouraging quality release for filmmakers like Ghatak, Mrinal Sen, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, etc. Ray is the Kurosawa of India as far as international name recognition is concerned, but he's not the only one whose films deserve quality home video releases. If not Criterion, I hope Kino Lorber, Artificial Eye, BFI, MoC/Eureka, etc. step up to the plate.