A Tribute To An Artist : Banshi Chandragupta

Banshi Chandragupta was the pioneer of new cinematic art direction in
Indian scene. A very true-to-life or down-to-earth approach he applied
first for the silver screen of India in 1950. Satyajit Ray reiterated
this on many occasions.

Banshi Chandragupta came to this city in the year 1944 to become a
painter, when he met Shubho Thakur. And Banshi started his journey by
illustrating book covers, inside illustrations and teaching Hindi
language. In the year 1946, he started his career as art director in
the film 'Abhijatri' by Hemen Gupta. Banshi was the assistant of Botu
Sen in this film. Jean Renoir came to India to shoot his film 'The
River'. Banshi also worked in that film. He worked regularly for the
Bengali theatre based on Tagore's plays. But the landmark of his
career was obviously Satyajit Ray's first film "Pather Panchali" in
the year 1950. Banshi became famous for his outstanding work in
"Pather Panchali".

Arindam Saha Sardar made a film on the life of Banshi and the name of
this 50 minutes duration film is "Banshi Chandragupta". The film will
be screened on 27th June, 2016 at Nazrul Tirtha (at 5:30 pm). This
27th June is the 35th death anniversary of this legendary art
director. The film will be presented by Uttarpara Jeevansmriti and the
whole programme will be held in collaboration with HIDCO. "Art
direction in the films of then and now" - the seminar on this topic
will be participated by Hiran Mitra and Sanjoy Mukhopadhyay.

--
A. B.

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