The Cloud-Capped Star

The Cloud-Capped Star

Directed by Ritwik Ghatak • 1960 • India
Starring Supriya Choudhury, Anil Chatterjee, Bijon Bhattacharya

Directed by the visionary Bengali filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak, THE CLOUD-CAPPED STAR tells the story of a family who have been uprooted by the Partition of India and come to depend on their eldest daughter, the self-sacrificing Neeta (Supriya Choudhury). She watches helplessly as her own hopes and desires are pushed aside time and again by those of her siblings and parents, until all her chances for happiness evaporate, leaving her crushed and ailing. Experimenting with off-balance compositions, discontinuous editing, and a densely layered soundtrack, Ghatak devised an intellectually ambitious and emotionally devastating new shape for the melodrama, lamenting the tragedies of Indian history and the inequities of traditional gender roles while blazing a formal trail for the generations of Indian filmmakers who have followed him.

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The Cloud-Capped Star
  • The Cloud-Capped Star

    Directed by Ritwik Ghatak • 1960 • India
    Starring Supriya Choudhury, Anil Chatterjee, Bijon Bhattacharya

    Directed by the visionary Bengali filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak, THE CLOUD-CAPPED STAR tells the story of a family who have been uprooted by the Partition of India and come to depend on their eldes...

Extras

  • Saeed Akhtar Mirza and Kumar Ashahani on THE CLOUD-CAPPED STAR

    Prominent filmmakers Saeed Akhtar Mirza and Kumar Shahani both studied under director Ritwik Ghatak at the Film and Television Institute of India in Pune, and their own movies have been inspired by Ghatak's work and teaching. In the following conversation, recorded by the Criterion Collection in ...