| The Bengali Night | |
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| Directed by | Nicolas Klotz |
| Written by |
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| Based on | Bengal Nights by Mircea Eliade |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Michel Portal, Brij Narayan |
Release date |
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Running time | 115 minutes |
| Countries |
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| Language | French |
The Bengali Night (French : la Nuit Bengali) is a 1988 semi-autobiographical film based upon the Mircea Eliade 1933 Romanian novel, Bengal Nights , directed by Nicolas Klotz and starring Hugh Grant, Soumitra Chatterjee, Supriya Pathak and Shabana Azmi.
Allan (Hugh Grant) is an engineer working in 1930s Calcutta. He is invited to stay with the family of his boss, Narendra Sen (Soumitra Chatterjee) which includes his wife, Indira (Shabana Azmi) and daughter Gayatri (Supriya Pathak). Gayatri and Allan become romantically involved leading to tragedy.
Production of the film occurred about a decade after Maitreyi Devi (the inspiration for the character Gayatri) published her version of the story Na Hanyate , (originally published in Bengali). She also extracted a promise from Eliade that his version would never be published in English as long as she is alive. According to Ginu Kamani in "A Terrible Hurt:The Untold Story behind the Publishing of Maitreyi Devi," Maitreyi witnessed the making of the film "The Bengali Night," which was shot in Calcutta from 1987-88 (Eliade had died that year). Her protests culminated "in court cases against the film for insulting Hinduism and for being pornographic." [1] The film was only shown once in India at a film festival in 1989 to mixed reviews and was never released in theaters in the U.S. [1] Kamani also notes:
The film was mostly shot at the huge Zamindar Mansion - "Gaine Bari" of the village of Dhanyakuria and some parts at Indrapuri Studios, Kolkata.
Mahasweta Devi was an Indian writer in Bengali and an activist. Her notable literary works include Hajar Churashir Maa, Rudali, and Aranyer Adhikar. She was a leftist who worked for the rights and empowerment of the tribal people of West Bengal, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh states of India. She was honoured with various literary awards such as the Sahitya Akademi Award, Jnanpith Award and Ramon Magsaysay Award along with India's civilian awards Padma Shri and Padma Vibhushan.
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SoumitraChatterjee was an Indian film actor, play-director, playwright, writer, thespian and poet. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential actors in the history of Indian cinema. He is best known for his collaborations with director Satyajit Ray, with whom he worked in fourteen films.
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Raima Sen is an Indian actress who is known for her work in the Hindi and Bengali films.
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La Nuit Bengali is a 1933 Romanian novel written by the author and philosopher Mircea Eliade.
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Paar is a 1984 Indian Hindi-language film directed by Goutam Ghose and produced by Swapan Sarkar. The film stars Shabana Azmi, Naseeruddin Shah and Om Puri. Naseeruddin Shah won a Volpi Cup for his role as Naurangia. The film was based on Bengali story Paari by Samaresh Basu.
Nicolas Klotz is a French filmmaker born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine.
Maitreyi Devi was an Indian poet and novelist. She is best known for her Sahitya Akademi Award-winning novel, Na Hanyate.
Na Hanyate is a novel written in 1974 by Maitreyi Devi, an Indian poet and novelist who was the protégée of the great Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore. The writer received Sahitya Akademi Award for this novel in 1976. She wrote the novel in response to Romanian philosopher Mircea Eliade's book La Nuit Bengali, which related a fictionalized account of their romance during Eliade's visit to India.
Koni is a national award-winning Bengali movie released in 1984 directed by Saroj Dey, starring Soumitra Chatterjee and Sriparna Banerjee. This film is an adaptation of a Bengali novel by the same name written by Moti Nandi. The film is about a girl living in Calcutta slums, who with the help of her coach triumphs over poverty and hardships. The film's lead Sriparna Banerjee was also a professional swimmer herself in the 1970s and at the time of casting a student of Jadavpur University. The film was a smash hit at the west-bengal box-office. It also surpassess Shatru(1984) of Ranjit Mallick.
Purba Paschim is a Bengali theatre group of Kolkata, West Bengal, India. The group was founded in 2005 and has staged several plays like Babli, Ashalin etc. The famous productions of the group are "Patalbabu Filmstar" based on Satyajit Roy's story and " Antony Soudamini" Directed By Soumitra Mitra, Tagores Play Chaturanga Directed By Bratya Basu acted by Kushal Chakraborty, Chaity Ghoshal, Debdut Ghosh, Soumitra Mitra. Notable people like Biswajit Chakraborty, Gargi roychoudhry, Shaantilal Mukherjee, Chaity Ghosal, Debdut Ghosh, Kanchana Moitro, Subhrajeet Dutta, Kushal Chakraborty, Film Actor Rahul acted in this Group. In the Festivals of this Group We have seen, Amman Ali Khan, Ayaan Ali Khan, Sharmila Tagore, Soumitra Chatterjee, Mohan Aghase, Gulzar, Shabana Azmi, Amol Palekar, Nandita Das and Many Others.
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