News

Gone are the days when shows were allowed to run for at least 4-5 seasons, with each season having somewhere between 13-20 episodes, thereby giving the writers and directors a chance to improve and prove their worth. Shows coming out today get maybe 8 episodes, 10 if they’re lucky. And as soon as it’s aired, all at once or on a weekly basis, the cast and crew are told if they have been cancelled (which is very common), if they’ll be allowed to come back for one final season (it’s becoming common), or if they’ll get to stretch their premise until the audience loses interest (that’s rare). Of course, that last option is great because everyone stays employed. However, I don’t know which of the first 2 options is better. When you don’t get to go out on your own terms, like with Mindhunter or Iron Fist,...

Satyajit Ray’s 1969 visual rendition of Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury’s children’s fantasy “Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne” (Ggbb), along with its later extension titled “Hirak Rajar Deshe” (1980), which was originally written by Satyajit Ray himself, has been inhabiting the center of a popular polemic in West Bengal and Bangladesh for ages now, which forays into arguing that these two visual pieces are more than what they seem and must not be understood simply as children’s cinema. Not only has a flux of academic and non-academic articles on these two films kept coming throughout all these years, but the duology has also been, for a long time, significantly central to the space of popular political praxes (mostly in the left milieu).

The current regime in India (led by the National Democratic Alliance) has, on multiple occasions, been analogized with “Hirak Raja” (The King of Hirak) by the West Bengal faction of the opposition,...

What:

Screening of ‘Goopi Gawaiyaa Bagha Bajaiyaa’, an animated film directed by Shilpa Ranade, at Vikalp@Prithvi.

The director will be present for the Q&A session.

When:

May 26, 2014

7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Where:

Prithvi Theatre

20 Janki Kutir, Juhu Church Road

Mumbai 400 049

Entry:

Free. Seating on first-come, first-served basis

About the event:

‘Goopi Gawaiyaa Bagha Bajaiyaa’ is an adaptation of Bengali writer Upendrakishore Raychowdhuri’s ‘Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne’.

Goopi and Bagha are two wise fools, one lives to sing and the other to play the drum, each hilariously inept at their chosen craft. When the villagers cannot bear to listen to them anymore, both are banished to the same forest. Here, Goopi and Bagha encounter each other and their fates become entwined for life.

The film has been screened at several film festivals including Toronto International Film Festival, Dubai International Film Festival, Mumbai Film Festival and International Children’s Film Festival of India.

The forthcoming 18th edition of International Children’s Film Festival India, to be held in Hyderabad from November 14-20, 2013, will have a new category ‘International Animation’ in the competition section.

The animation category will showcase the best animated children’s film from all around the globe.

There are total 12 feature films competing in this section including two Indian animations: Shilpa Ranade’s Goopi Gawaiyya Bagha Bajaiyya produced by the Children’s Film Society India and Arnab Chawdhury’s Arjun produced by Utv.

The animated musical Goopi Gawaiyya Bagha Bajaiyya, an adaption of Bengali writer Upendrakishore Raychowdhuri’s “Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne” will also be the inaugural film of the 18 Golden Elephant. Raychowdhuri’s comic fantasy was most famously adapted for the screen in 1969 by his renowned grandson, Satyajit Ray.

The competition section consists of four categories including ‘Competition International Live Action’, ‘Competition Shorts’ and ‘Competition Little Directors’ where national and...

Shilpa Ranade

S hilpa Ranade, a well-known figure in the Indian animation industry, presented her latest feature The World of Goopi and Bagha at the Mumbai Film festival 2013. Produced by the Children’s Film Society of India (Cfsi), the film had its world premiere at Toronto International Film Festival this year.

How do you strike a balance between teaching industrial design at the Indian Institute of Technology (Iit) and making animation films, both creatively and professionally?

My work at the Iit is the kind of work that allows me to practice and teach and to do research. So for me this really forms the basis of all that interests me. I must do all. I can’t just be a practitioner and then not teach, if I am just a teacher then I would not be a good practitioner. So I think it’s all hand in glove. You need to work like that,...

Goopi Gawaiiya Bagha Bajaiiya / The World of Goopi and Bagha

Written by Soumitra Ranade

Directed by Shilpa Ranade

India, 2013

Children’s films are a very difficult terrain for filmmakers to navigate. In addition to having to proceed with no clear idea of what constitutes a good children’s film, as that can vary from person to person, according to their experiences and emotions growing up, writers and directors also have to ensure they do not talk down to children, and make something entertaining in the end. Along with all these hurdles, director Shilpa Ranade tackled the story of Goopy Gyne and Bagha Byne for her debut animated feature, two characters immortalised by legendary filmmaker Satyajit Ray. Fortunately, Goopi Gawaiiya Bagha Bajaiiya manages to be a charming, fun film all on its own.

A definite highlight of the movie is the music. While the film can effectively be classified as a...

It’s hard to imagine a film that would stand up to Satyajit Ray’s 1969 film Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne (based on a story by Ray’s grandfather, Upendrakishore Ray), but book illustrator and animator Shilpa Ranade manages to do just that with her animated version, Goopi Gawaiiya Bagha Bajaiiya (The World of Goopy and Bagha), screening at the Toronto International Film Festival. The bones of the story remain the same: singer Goopi and drummer Bagha meet in the forest after being banished from their respective kingdoms – both love the music they make, but their lack of talent and its resulting cacophony does not endear them to anyone. However, the king of the ghosts hears them, and, oddly enthralled by them, decides to grant them a number of boons: delicious food that appears when they clap for it; a pair of wonderful shoes that will transport them wherever they wish...

A still from Faith Connections

T he 38th edition of Toronto International Film Festival (Tiff) that kicks off today has lined up seven Indian films for screenings, out of which four are world premieres.

The Lunchbox and Shuddh Desi Romance will be screened as part of Gala Presentations, Qissa and Siddharth in the Contemporary World Cinema section, The World of Gopi and Bagha in Tiff Kids section, documentary Faith Connections in Tiff Docs and Mount Song in the Wavelengths section.

Besides, the Mavericks section that is an “on-stage conversation with leaders in the film industry and beyond” has invited actor Irrfan Khan to discuss his stint in Bollywood so far. Khan plays lead roles in two of the Indian films (Qissa and The Lunchbox) at Tiff this year.

Film journalist and critic Namrata Joshi, who works with Outlook Magazine, is serving on the Fipresci (International Federation of Film Critics) Jury of the festival.

In this sophomore episode of They Shot Pictures, I am joined by Reel Time veteran Deepayan Sengupta. The two of us take a trip down memory lane and revisit films by a director who played a key role in our cinematic education.

We discuss three films by renowned Bengali director, Satyajit Ray. We start with a musical adventure comedy from 1968, Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne. We move on to the first film from his loose trilogy on the city of Calcutta, called The Adversary and wrap up the episode with a discussion of the resplendent color film set in the aftermath of the partition of Bengal, Ghare Baire.

Download MP3 in a new window

Subscribe via iTunes ...

Long Shadows: The Late Work of Satyajit Ray opens this evening and runs through April 26 at the Film Society of Lincoln Center: "Of special interest is Home and the World [1984; image above], his final, wonderful adaptation of a work by his mentor, Rabindranath Tagore (whose 150th anniversary we celebrate this year), as well as his final, luminous work, The Stranger, an extraordinary summing up of so much of Ray's worldview graced with a sensational lead performance by Utpal Dutt." Plus, "we asked some friends of the Film Society: what film would you recommend seeing, and why?" Meantime, Paul Brunick posts a roundup on Distant Thunder (1973) at Alt Screen. Update, 4/20: Salman Rushdie for the Fslc on The Golden Fortress (1974): "The film is a true delight and the moment when the Golden Fortress is discovered — when it is revealed not to be a child's fantasy but a real place, shimmering on...

Kolkata, May 24 – Veteran Bengali actor Tapen Chattopadhyay, who became a household name among the Bengali speaking population for his performances as Goopy in Satyajit Ray’s Goopy-Bagha series of films, died at his residence Monday following respiratory failure.

Chattopadhyay, 72, shot into the limelight after playing the role of Goopy Gyne in Ray’s classic ‘Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne’ (The Adventures of Goopy and Bagha), which was equally liked by children and adults and became a huge commercial success.

Apart from the Goopy-Bagha.