Wikipedia:Today's featured article/August 26, 2015
Pather Panchali is a 1955 Bengali drama film adapted from Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay's 1929 Bengali novel of the same name. The debut film of the Indian director Satyajit Ray, it depicts the lives of a family from a poor Indian village with two children, Apu (Subir Banerjee) and his elder sister Durga (Uma Dasgupta). The film, shot mainly on location in rural India, took nearly three years to complete. Sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar composed the score. After a screening in May at New York's Museum of Modern Art, it was officially released in Kolkata on August 26, 1955, and was enthusiastically received after a slow start. Many critics have praised the film's realism and humanity, though a few have found fault with its slow pace; other critics have condemned it, claiming it romanticizes poverty. The tale of Apu's life is continued in Aparajito (The Unvanquished, 1956) and Apur Sansar (The World of Apu, 1959). The three films constitute the Apu Trilogy. Pather Panchali was a pioneer film of the Parallel Cinema movement and was the first film from independent India to attract major international attention, winning a number of awards and establishing Ray as a major director. It has been featured in lists of the greatest films ever made. (Full article...)