Ray’s restored films to grace screens at Toronto festival
TORONTO: In recent months global audiences have been exposed to a rediscovery of Satyajit Ray’s films, driven by the availability of finely restored versions of many of the classics. This new focus on the filmmaker’s works is getting another boost with a retrospective being hosted by TIFF Cinematheque.
The Cinematheque is part of the same organisation that holds the annual Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), one of the four major global film festivals. The retrospective, The Sun and the Moon: The Films of Satyajit Ray, comprises 34 titles and started on July 3 and runs through August 17.
It includes many films that have been restored by the Academy Film Archive (AFA), a non-profit supported by the Academy for Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, as part of the Satyajit Ray Preservation Project that had its genesis in 1992, the year he was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Oscar.
But as 35 mm prints are getting increasingly outmoded in the film world, the next challenge will be to bring Ray’s works into the digital domain. That’s part of the AFA’s agenda, as its Director Michael Pogorzelski said, “We’re revisiting the Apu Trilogy and digitally restoring it.” That’s in conjunction with Criterion, which releases collections of classics. DVD and Blu Ray sets of the Apu Trilogy are expected out possibly by 2015.
James Quandt, programmer for this series, is thrilled with the viewing of these films. He said, “It’s wonderful to be able to bring Ray’s films alive and bring new audiences to them.”
The hope, of course, is that a new generation of cinephiles will discover Ray’s art. As Quandt said, “I expect or hope, that a young audience will discover the magnificent cinema of Satyajit Ray.”