The Cloud-Capped Star
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.
The Cloud-Capped Star was restored in partnership with The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project and the Cineteca di Bologna, from elements preserved by the National Film Archive of India.
Special Features
- New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
- New conversation between filmmakers Saeed Akhtar Mirza and Kumar Shahani
- Stills gallery featuring rare photographs related to director Ritwik Ghatak’s life and work, curated by writer and photographer Nabarupa Bhattacharjee
- New English subtitle translation
- PLUS: An essay by film scholar Ira Bhaskar
New cover by F. Ron Miller
Special Features
- New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
- New conversation between filmmakers Saeed Akhtar Mirza and Kumar Shahani
- Stills gallery featuring rare photographs related to director Ritwik Ghatak’s life and work, curated by writer and photographer Nabarupa Bhattacharjee
- New English subtitle translation
- PLUS: An essay by film scholar Ira Bhaskar
New cover by F. Ron Miller
Cast
- Supriya Choudhury
- Neeta
- Anil Chatterjee
- Shankar
- Bijon Bhattacharya
- The father
- Gita Dey
- The mother
- Gita Ghatak
- Geeta
- Dwiju Bhawal
- Montu
- Niranjan Ray
- Sanat
Credits
- Director
- Ritwik Ghatak
- Written by
- Ritwik Ghatak
- Produced by
- Ritwik Ghatak
- Story by
- Shaktipada Rajguru
- Director of photography
- Dinen Gupta
- Editor
- Ramesh Joshi
- Art director
- Ravi Chatterjee
- Musical direction
- Jyotirindra Moitra
- “On That Night” written and composed by
- Rabindranath Tagore
