Subarnarekha

by Ritwik Ghatak

India

Director: Ritwik Ghatak

Script: Ritwik Ghatak

Cinematographer: Dilip. Ranajan Mukhopadhyay

Editor: Ramesh Joshi

Sound: Satyen Chatterjee

Music: U. Bahadur Khan

Cast: Abhi Bhattacharya, S. Bhattacharya, M. Mukhopadhyay, Jabar Roy

Distribution:
LFilms Sans Frontières
70, bd de Sébastopol
75003 Paris
France
Tel.: 0033 1.42.77.21.84
Fax: 0033 1.42.77.42.66
Mail: [email protected]
www.films-sans-frontières.fr

Year: 1962

35 mm, B & W, 132 min
OV Hindu with French Subtitles

In a refugee camp where people from East Bengal have come after the Partition, the celebration of the Independence of India is taking place. Ishawar and his young sister Sita, Hari Prasad, an idealist teacher, and his family, witness the abduction of a low cast woman. Abhiram, her young son, is taken care of by Ishawar who looks after him and his sister Sita in their new house, by the river Subarnerekha. They grow up happily until Abhiram is sent away to college. When he comes back, Abhiram realises that he is in love with Sita who reciprocates his feelings. Yet, Ishawar has decided to send Abhiram abroad, in Germany, for his studies, mainly under the influence of his colleague who convinces him that Abhiram is above all an Untouchable more than a brilliant student. Abirham does not know about his mother and finds out his low cast origins when he meets his dying mother. He leaves for Calcutta, alone. Ishawar is in a hurry to get Sita married off. On her wedding day, she elopes to Calcutta where she marries her beloved Abhiram. They are poor and soon Binu, their son, is born...

"Subarnarekha explores the theme of refugees or displaced people" wrote Ritwik Ghatak.

To be born untouchable, to be born a woman, to become a refugee in the post Partition India.