New Delhi: Satyajit Ray’s Aranyer Din Ratri is all set to return to theatres on 7 November. The newly restored 4K version of the 1970 film, which premiered at the 78th Cannes Film Festival in May, will now be available to watch across India.
The film is a sharp critique of class, masculinity, and alienation in post-colonial India, explored through four men who travel from Calcutta all the way to the dense forests of Bihar.
Arijit Dutta, owner of Priya cinema, one of the oldest single screen theatres in Kolkata, shared the news in a Facebook post on Monday. “A must see again… From 7.11.25 onwards ….. and yes it’s a national release at select theatres and plex’s,” wrote Dutta.
Aranyer Din Ratri was also screened at Italy’s Il Cinema Ritrovato film festival in June, and its North American premiere was held at the Toronto International Film Festival in September.
Adapted from Bengali author Sunil Gangopadhyay’s novel of the same name, the film follows a group of urban men from Calcutta — played by Soumitra Chatterjee, Subhendu Chatterjee, Samit Bhanja, and Rabi Ghosh — as they go on a weekend adventure to a forest. Sharmila Tagore, Kaberi Bose, and Simi Garewal are also part of the cast.
Also read: Satyajit Ray’s 1960 Devi shows God-fearing rural Bengal—and devotion delusion
The restoration
The film received a nomination for Best Film at the 20th Berlin International Film Festival in 1970. A sequel, titled Abar Aranye and directed by Goutam Ghose, was released in 2003. It continues from where the earlier film ends, and features a mix of the original cast and some new faces.
The Cannes screening of the restored classic was attended by Sharmila Tagore and Simi Garewal. Filmmaker Wes Anderson introduced the restored version of the film and also acknowledged how he recreated a key scene from Ray’s film in his own movie, Asteroid City (2023).
As a member of Martin Scorsese’s The Film Foundation, Anderson also helped with Aranyer Din Ratri’s restoration in 2019. The project was jointly carried out by the Film Heritage Foundation, Janus Films, and The Criterion Collection, and funded by the Golden Globe Foundation. It is now part of the Cannes Classics line-up.
The restoration was successfully completed with the help of the original camera and sound negative preserved by the film’s producer Purnima Dutta. One crucial element of the restoration process was creating new, accurate English subtitles. This was done with the help of author Indrani Mazumdar, who has also translated many of Ray’s books to English.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)